Rock
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Forty-five years after it felt like the first time for Foreigner, the veteran rock troupe is planning to tour for the very last time.
The band, formed during 1976 by British guitarist Mick Jones, will launch its Historic Farewell Tour next July 6 in Alpharetta, Ga., with 32 U.S dates running through Sept. 3 in Holmdel, N.J. Loverboy will be opening. More legs, both domestic and overseas, are on tap through the end of 2024.
“Foreigner is a completely revitalized band with a whole new energy that has won the hearts of our fans all over the world, and I want to go out while the band is still at the top of its game,” Jones, 77, tells Billboard. “I had the idea that was to become Foreigner back in 1974, and I was 30 years old at the time. By the end of our farewell tour, over 50 years will have passed, and that’s a long time to be on the road.”
Kelly Hansen, Foreigner’s frontman since 2005, says that he and Jones had been discussing the move for a while. “It’s a very difficult decision to come to,” he notes, adding that maintaining the caliber of the band’s performance, and his is in particular, was a driving factor in the decision to pull the plug.
“This catalog of songs, it’s extremely challenging for a rock tenor vocalist like myself to sing,” explains Hansen, 61. “I never would have thought in a million years I’d be singing these songs in the keys at this age, and I don’t know how much longer I can do that at the level I need do. You can drop keys and do this and do that, but I’m more of an old school person. If I’m not doing it for real then I shouldn’t be doing it.
“We’re at an era in life where a lot of bands from the ’70s are right on the ragged edge of still being able to do shows. I see other musicians sometimes that I go, ‘Wow, that was disappointing,’ and I don’t want to be someone that other people say that about. I want to do this band the way it’s supposed to be, and when it’s not like that I don’t want to be doing it.”
Since its formation, Foreigner has released nine studio albums — five of them multi-platinum, plus the 1982 hits set Records — and sold more than 50 million records worldwide. It’s also notched nine top 10 singles on the Billboard Hot 100, including rock radio staples such as “Feels Like the First Time,” “Hot Blooded,” “Double Vision,” “Urgent” and the chart-topping power ballad “I Want to Know What Love Is.” More than two dozen members have been part of the roster over the years, and members of the first two lineups made a series of guest appearances with the current lineup during 2017 and 2018.
Jones, the last original member still active with Foreigner, has become something of a special guest at the band’s concerts, not attending every show due to health reasons and playing during the latter portion of the set. “Mick does all the shows he can do with us as his health allows, and we’re cognizant of that,” Hansen says. “I can’t say that doesn’t have an effect” on the farewell tour decision, “but that’s also a reality of life and time, so you take what you’re given and you make your decisions based on that.”
Foreigner has a number of concerts scheduled this month and also in the spring, prior to the farewell tour launch — including March and April residencies at the Venetian in Las Vegas. Hansen adds that while Foreigner is calling a halt to touring it may not go away entirely. “I’m sure there might be the odd or occasional things we do,” the frontman says. “You can never say never about things. But for me this (tour) is it. It’s not like one of these, like we’ve seen, ploys to get people out to shows.”
Both Hansen and Jeff Pilson, Foreigner’s bassist since 2004, say that Foreigner – whose last studio album, Can’t Slow Down, came out in 2009 — may release some new music in the near future, too. “There’s a whole bunch of stuff in different stages of completion, so that’s not outside the realm of possibility,” Hansen predicts. Pilson says that Jones has been writing material with Marti Frederiksen that he expects the band to work on at some point.
“There’s probably four I’m aware of that are close, and some other snippets,” Pilson says. “Chances are there won’t be a whole new (album). I can see some new songs being added to some kind of a package or some kind of a single. I definitely see some new material coming, hopefully within the next year. We don’t need new material, but it’s always nice to have.”
Tickets for The Historic Farewell Tour go on sale Nov. 18 via livenation.com. The group is again working with the Grammy Museum Foundation to recruit local choirs at each stop to perform with the band for “I Want to Know What Love Is” via foreignerchoirs.com. More information and updates will be posted to foreigneronline.com.
The full itinerary for the first leg of the tour:Thu July 6th Alpharetta, GA – Ameris Bank AmphitheatreSat July 8th West Palm Beach, FL – iTHINK Financial AmphitheatreSun July 9th Tampa, FL – MIDFLORIDA Credit Union AmphitheatreTue July 11th Nashville, TN – Ascend AmphitheatreFri July 14th Rogers, AR – Walmart AMPTue July 18th Kansas City, MO – Starlight TheatreWed July 19th St. Louis, MO – Hollywood Casino AmphitheatreFri July 21st Indianapolis, IN – Ruoff Music CenterSat July 22nd Tinley Park, IL – Hollywood Casino AmphitheatreMon July 24th Cleveland, OH – Blossom Music CenterTue July 25th Toronto, ON – Budweiser StageFri July 28th Darien Center, NY – Darien Lake AmphitheaterSat July 29th Burgettstown, PA – The Pavilion at Star LakeTue August 1st Saratoga Springs, NY – Saratoga Performing Arts CenterWed August 2nd Wantagh, NY – Northwell Health at Jones BeachFri August 4th Gilford, NH – Bank of New Hampshire PavilionSat August 5th Mansfield, MA – Xfinity CenterTue August 8th Raleigh, NC – Coastal Credit Union Music Park at Walnut CreekWed August 9th Charlotte, NC – PNC Music PavilionFri August 11th Dallas, TX – Dos Equis PavilionSat August 12th Houston, TX – Cynthia Woods Mitchell PavilionMon August 14th Austin, TX – Moody CenterWed August 16th Denver, CO – Ball ArenaFri August 18th Salt Lake City, UT – USANA AmphitheaterSun August 20th Phoenix, AZ – Ak-Chin PavilionMon August 21st Irvine, CA – FivePoint AmphitheaterWed August 23rd Wheatland, CA – Toyota AmphitheaterThu August 24th Mountain View, CA – Shoreline AmphitheatreWeds August 30th Detroit, MI – Pine Knob Music TheaterFri September 1st Uncasville, CT – Mohegan Sun ArenaSat September 2nd Syracuse, NY – St. Joseph’s Health Amphitheater at LakeviewSun September 3rd Holmdel, NJ – PNC Bank Arts Center
Keith Levene, the innovative guitarist who was a founding member of the Clash and Public Image Ltd, has died in Norfolk, U.K. He was 65.
His death was announced through social media on Saturday (Nov. 12) by former Public Image Ltd bandmates Martin Atkins and Jah Wobble. Levene passed away following a battle with liver cancer, The Guardian reports.
Billboard has reached out to Public Image Ltd’s representatives for comment.
“A sad time to learn of the passing of guitar giant Keith Levene,” Atkins wrote on Twitter. “We had our ups and downs that had mellowed over time. My respect for his unique talent never will.”
“RIP KEITH LEVENE,” Wobble said.
Author Adam Hammond, a friend of Levene, wrote on Twitter that he died on Friday (Nov. 11) and noted, “There is no doubt that Keith was one of the most innovative, audacious and influential guitarists of all time.”
Levene, who was born in London in 1957 and as a teenager was a roadie for Yes, was a co-founder of the Clash but left the band before their first album was even released.
He teamed up with guitarist Mick Jones in the mid-1970s to form an early version of the Clash. Along with the band’s manager Bernard Rhodes, Levene convinced Joe Strummer to join the group. Levene departed before the act started recording, but co-wrote the song “What’s My Name,” which appears on the Clash’s 1977 debut album.
After leaving the Clash, Levene briefly formed the band the Flowers of Romance with Sid Vicious, who later left to join the Sex Pistols. When the Sex Pistols disbanded in 1978, Levene and singer John Lydon joined forces with bass player John Wardle (aka Jah Wobble) and drummer Jim Walker to form Public Image Ltd.
Levene contributed to Public Image Ltd’s earliest albums — First Issue (1978), Metal Box (1979) and Flowers of Romance (1981) — and left the group in the mid-1983.
Later in his career, Levene worked on a handful of solo projects, including 1989’s Violent Opposition, featuring members of Red Hot Chili Peppers.
“Music is important to me because I’m a composer. It turns out that I really am a good musician and composer. I can’t read music, I’m self-taught … I was never really enamoured with punk, it just came at the right time,” Levene said in an interview with the publication Gimmie Gimmie Gimmie Zine.
He recalled his early years as a musician: “When I came off tour with Yes I realized I wanted to be in a band. Having a band was a big f—ing thing for a 15-year-old. I’m looking at this cherry red guitar in my little bedroom, I remember like it was yesterday, I’m looking at this thing and thought I had to get a real Gibson. I knew me well enough by then to know that I wasn’t going to allow myself to have a Gibson unless I could play really, really well, proper.”
Polyphia hits No. 1 on a Billboard rock chart for the first time with Remember That You Will Die, which crowns the Top Hard Rock Albums list dated Nov. 12.
Remember launches with 16,000 equivalent album units earned in the week ending Nov. 3, according to Luminate. Of that sum, 10,000 units are from album sales.
Polyphia previously peaked as high as No. 4 on Top Hard Rock Albums with 2016’s Renaissance.
Remember also begins at No. 3 on Top Alternative Albums, surpassing the No. 5 debut and peak of 2018’s New Levels New Devils. It also opens at Nos. 5 and 6 on Top Rock Albums and Top Rock & Alternative Albums, respectively, also both new bests for the band.
On the all-genre Billboard 200, Remember is Polyphia’s first top 40 album, starting at No. 33 and outperforming the No. 61 peak of Devils.
Concurrently, three songs from Remember place on Billboard’s multi-metric Hot Hard Rock Songs chart. “Ego Death,” featuring Steve Vai, leads the way at No. 18 with 759,000 official U.S. streams in the week ending Nov. 3.
Look busy, the Boss is here.
At age 73, and with a new album dropping at the stroke of midnight, Only the Strong Survive, Bruce Springsteen proves once again that age is just a number.
For Springsteen, Only the Strong Survive, a collection of covers, is studio album number 21.
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“This was something I hadn’t done since the Seeger Sessions,” he said of the format of the new project while nodding to his Grammy-winning 2006 album We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions, a collection of folk songs made famous by Pete Seeger.
Springsteen paid close attention to the vocals, and his team “mastered and sonically modernized some of the most beautiful songs in the American pop song book,” he explained earlier. “I had so much fun recording this music. I fell back in love with all these great songs and great writers and great singers. All of them still underrated in my opinion. And through the project I rediscovered the power of my own voice.”
Spanning 15 works, Survive features songs made famous by Jerry Butler, Dobie Gray, The Commodores, Jimmy Ruffin, Diana Ross & the Supremes, The Four Tops, The Walker Brothers and more.
Springsteen isn’t just surviving, he’s thriving. Only the Strong Survive closely follows the release of Western Stars (from 2019), and Letter to You (2020), both of which peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 chart.
In the peak of the pandemic, in 2021, he returned to his Springsteen on Broadway show, launched a podcast (Renegades: Born in the USA, with President Barack Obama), and published a 320-page book capturing those conversations between the rock legend and the 44th U.S president.
Springsteen and the E Street Band will play an arena or a stadium near you when they kick off an international tour in Feb. 2023, with dates across North America, the U.K. and Europe stretching deep into summer.
Stream Only the Strong Survive below.
The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is gearing up to celebrate its class of 2022 with the public on Nov. 19, and on Thursday (Nov. 10), a trailer for the upcoming special was released.
In the nearly two-minute clip, snippets from the 2022 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony earlier this month flash across the screen. Rock hitmakers Pat Benatar & Neil Giraldo, new wave chart-toppers Duran Duran, hip-hop heavyweight Eminem, synth-pop duo Eurythmics, country legend Dolly Parton, R&B hitmaker Lionel Richie and pop singer-songwriter Carly Simon are all seen accepting their prestigious honor, along with introductions from star-studded attendees. Judas Priest and Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis also joined the Rock Hall with the “award for musical excellence.”
“Rock and roll is not a color,” Richie is seen saying in the teaser. “It’s a vibe!”
Artists are eligible for Rock Hall nomination 25 years after their first commercial recording came out. Of this class, Eminem, Duran Duran, Richie, Simon and Parton see induction after appearing on the ballot just once. This is also Eminem’s first year of eligibility; 2022 marked the second nomination for Eurythmics and Benatar.
The 2022 ceremony also marked the first time in the Hall’s 37-year history that six female acts — Benatar, Parton, Simon, Cotten, Robinson and Annie Lennox (who comprised Eurythmics with her partner Dave Stewart) — were inducted in one class.
Watch the trailer below, and be sure to catch the 2022 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony, streaming November 19 on HBO Max, which you can sign up for here.
Godsmack scores its 12th No. 1 on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock Airplay chart – and its fifth in a row – as “Surrender” lifts to the top of the Nov. 12-dated survey.
The Sully Erna-fronted band’s streak of five No. 1s dates to “Bulletproof” in 2018. The group followed with “When Legends Rise” (2018), “Under Your Scars” (2019) and “Unforgettable” (2020) prior to its latest leader.
Godsmack breaks out of a three-way tie for the sixth-most No. 1s in the tally’s 41-year history. Shinedown leads all acts with 18.
Most No. 1s, Mainstream Rock Airplay18, Shinedown17, Three Days Grace13, Five Finger Death Punch13, Van Halen12, Godsmack11, Disturbed11, Foo Fighters10, Metallica10, Tom Petty (solo and with the Heartbreakers)10, Volbeat
Godsmack first appeared on Mainstream Rock Airplay with “Whatever,” which reached No. 7 in 1999. The band achieved its first No. 1 with “Awake” in 2001.
Concurrently, “Surrender” leaps 11-5 on the all-rock-format, audience-based Rock & Alternative Airplay chart with 3.3 million audience impressions, according to Luminate. “Surrender” ties the band’s highest rank on the list, which began in 2009, alongside “Love-Hate-Sex-Pain” in 2010 and “Unforgettable” in 2020.
“Surrender” also pushes 13-11 on the multimetric Hot Hard Rock Songs chart. In addition to its radio airplay, the song earned 484,000 official U.S. streams in the tracking week ending Nov. 3.
Lighting Up the Sky, Godsmack’s eighth studio album, is expected in February 2023. It’s the follow-up to 2018’s When Legends Rise, which debuted at No. 1 on the Top Rock & Alternative Albums chart that May and has earned 650,000 equivalent album units to date.
Dan McCafferty, original lead singer for Scottish hard rockers Nazareth, has died at age 76. The vocalist’s passing was announced by founding bassist/backing vocalist Pete Agnew, who revealed in an Instagram post that McCafferty died on Tuesday afternoon; at press time no cause of death had been announced.
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“This is the saddest announcement I ever had to make,” Agnew wrote. “Maryann and the family have lost a wonderful loving husband and father, I have lost my best friend and the world has lost one of the greatest singers who ever lived. Too upset to say anything more at this time.”
McCafferty, born on Oct. 14, 1946 in Dunfermline, Scotland was a co-founder of Nazareth, which came together in 1968 with guitarist Manny Charlton and drummer Darrell Sweet joining McCafferty and Agnew. The band released their self-titled debut in 1971, which was followed by 1972’s Exercises and 1973’s Razamanaz.
But it wasn’t until their sixth album, 1975s Hair of the Dog, that the group broke out beyond their European success, thanks to their rocked-up cover of the Everly Brothers’ 1960 song “Love Hurts.” The showcase for McCafferty’s muscular vocals rose to No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100. Hair of the Dog also marked the band’s highest charting album on the Billboard 200 charts, where it rose to No. 17 in March 1976, according to data provided by Luminate.
Nazareth’s “Love Hurts” was the highest-charting version of the tune — also famously covered by Cher as the title track of her 1991 album of the same name — and it has become a go-to power ballad in dozens of movies, including Wayne’s World, This is Spinal Tap, Dazed and Confused, Rock Star, Empire Records, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure and many more.
McCafferty fronted the band until his retirement from touring in 2013 due to unspecified health issues and appeared on 23 studio albums through 2014’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Telephone; he was replaced by Linton Osborne in 2014, who in turn was swapped out for current singer Carl Sentance. McCafferty also released a pair of solo albums during his time with the group, a self-titled 1975 collection and 1987’s Into the Ring, as well as his final solo effort, 2019’s Last Testament.
See Agnew’s tribute and watch a live version of “Love Hurts” below.
Greta Van Fleet postponed four more shows on their Dreams in Gold U.S. tour on Tuesday (Nov. 8) as singer Josh Kiszka continues to recover from a ruptured eardrum. After playing at the AT&T Center in San Antonio, Texas on Saturday night, the band alerted fans that upcoming gigs in El Paso, Texas (Nov. 8), Tucson, Arizona (Nov. 9) and Anaheim (Nov. 11) and Sacramento, California (Nov. 12) have been postponed.
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“I just wanted to express how beautiful and how awe-inspiring these couple of shows have really been, truly. Also, unfortunately, they’ve been rather painful,” he said in a video message to fans announcing the postponements. “The last time I spoke with you, I had asked for your understanding; I was dealing with a ruptured eardrum. Unfortunately, while the eardrum continues to heal, it also has continued to cause me great deal of physical pain, which has made it very difficult to perform.”
Kiszka said he’d been fighting through the pain over the past week and trying to “push through” for each show, but he’d reached the point where, “I think I need a period of time for more healing. Unfortunately, that means rescheduling the shows for the rest of this month, which kills me to do this, especially on such a short notice. I’m truly sorry to everyone in El Paso, Tucson, Anaheim and Sacramento. This year has been an extremely humbling experience. I can’t begin to thank all of you enough for your seemingly endless support and understanding.”
Kiszka said the four postponements were a “truly disheartening setback.”
This is the second string of dates GVF have had to postpone due to the injury suffered by Kiszka at an Oct. 8 show in Bangor, Maine. At the time the singer said he’d been experiencing a “situation” in his left ear that’s “caused plenty of infections, tinnitus (ringing in the ear) and difficulty hearing.” At that time, the band postponed a series of shows due to the ear issue, pushing back gigs in Hollywood, Tampa and Jacksonville, Florida, as well as Raleigh, N.C. and Greenville, S.C.
The group said they will share the new date as soon as they are available; existing tickets will remain valid for the rescheduled gigs, with any refunds available at point of purchase. The band’s next scheduled tour date is Dec. 9 at the Mark G Etess Arena in Atlantic City, NJ.
Check out Kiszka’s message to fans below.
The 1975 frontman Matty Healy brought out an unusual snack while onstage at the band’s New York show: raw meat. The British singer pulled out a slab of red meat while performing at Madison Square Garden, causing a major spectacle.
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A shirtless Healy devoured the meat before getting on his knees and crawling across the stage.
The spectacle was not new for fans of The 1975, who are used to Healy’s onstage antics. Even Healy’s mother, actress Denise Welch, tweeted that she witnessed his bizarre behavior as well. “I saw it too,” she wrote with three cry-laughing emojis in response to a journalist who tweeted: “There is no way I could possibly explain to my 18-year-old self that I just watched Matty Healy grope himself onstage and eat a raw steak before crawling into a television.”
It wasn’t just viewers in New York that got to see the act: The concert was broadcast on Twitch as a part of an Amazon Music UK event.
The band is currently on tour after releasing its fifth studio album, Being Funny in a Foreign Language, last month. The Madison Square Garden show is just the tour’s third stop since beginning Nov. 3 in Connecticut. The North American leg of the band’s tour will end in Pittsburgh on Dec. 17.
Watch a safe-for-work version of the video below:
Joe Walsh says the hardest thing about putting together his VetsAid benefits for the past six years has been “the ask.”
“I had to ask other artists if they would considering coming and participating and I’d never had to do that before, and I was very uncomfortable about it,” Walsh tells Billboard via Zoom. “I didn’t know if it would work.” It clearly has, but it turned out Walsh didn’t even have to invite one of the biggest names, Dave Grohl, to play at this year’s event, taking place Nov. 13 at Nationwide Arena in Columbus, Ohio.
“I hesitated to ask him, but it was his idea,” says Walsh — who played both of Foo Fighters’ Taylor Hawkins benefit concerts with his band James Gang, which is also on the VetsAid bill. “He said, ‘I’m gonna come’ and I said, ‘What are you gonna do?’ He said, ‘I don’t know, but I’m coming.’”
Grohl is billed as a special guest on the lineup, which also includes Nine Inch Nails, the Black Keys and the Breeders, with comedian/actor Drew Carey hosting. Walsh says Grohl “can do anything he wants. He’s gonna play a couple James Gang songs. I’m sure he’ll play ‘Rocky Mountain Way’ with me, probably help sing it.” Grohl performed “Funk #49” with James Gang at both of the Hawkins tribute concerts.
Walsh — whose father was a military flight instructor who died while on active duty in Okinawa, Japan, when Walsh was just 20 months old — founded VetsAid in 2017 to raise funds and awareness for the needs of veterans and their families, distributing funds to grassroots organizations in the communities where the concerts are held and beyond. VetsAid, in partnership with the Combined Arms Institute, has so far distributed more than $2 million in grants from the benefits and other fundraising efforts.
The acts playing this year’s VetsAid show all hail from Ohio; Walsh, though born in Kansas, moved to the state as a youth and attended Kent State University, where he formed his band the Measles. He joined the James Gang during late 1967, scoring Billboard Hot 100 hits “Walk Away” and “Funk #49” before leaving the band in late 1971.
“It’s gonna be all Ohio bands,” Walsh notes, “and there’s a great history of music that came out of Ohio. I’m grateful that I was in Ohio in a band that could play downtown (in Cleveland) and there were 11,000 students on campus that came downtown and supported us. That’s how I put in my 10,000 hours. Ohio has always been that way. There’s places to play and a lot of support. It’s a great place for musicians to work at their craft.” As for other possible collaborations, Walsh adds that “knowing musicians from Ohio, I don’t know who’s gonna be playing with who, and I can’t wait for that soup to get stirred.”
There were early reports that VetsAid would be a final gig for the James Gang, which also includes founding drummer Jimmy Fox and bassist Dale Peters. But Walsh says that may not be the case. “Glenn Frey (his late bandmate in Eagles) used to say never say never, so I’m not,” Walsh explains. “We played the concerts for Taylor Hawkins and it worked really good; we got in front of an audience and we were able to do what we used to do. I haven’t played loud on 11 in a long time; I play in a vocal group, so I have small amps. It’s different to turn it up and go for it, and I didn’t realize how much I missed it until we started cookin’ with the James Gang. I can’t wait to play again.”
At both of the Hawkins concerts — Sept. 3 in London and Sept. 27 in Los Angeles — James Gang performed “Walk Away” and “The Bomber” suite as well as “Funk #49.” “What got me was how much love there is in the world for Taylor, and how much Taylor would have loved to be at VetsAid,” recalls Walsh, who’s also contributing to an album celebrating original James Gang member Glenn Schwartz, which is being curated by the Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach. “It was a pilgrimage of musicians. The green room was kinda like the Star Wars bar, and we all got a chance to bond, which we don’t get to do anymore in the digital age. It was profound backstage, and the amount of love that came off the stage and back from the audience was, yeah, profound.”
For those not in Columbus, VetsAid will be livestreamed via veeps.com, with tickets on sale via vetsaid.veeps.com. Net proceeds will go to the charity, while Fandiem and Bandsintown are also participating in helping to raise additional money. This year’s grant recipients include Paralyzed Veterans of America — Buckeye Chapter, Hire Heroes USA, the National Veterans Memorial and Museum, the Resurrecting Lives Foundation, Back the Heroes Rumble and more. Updates and other information can be found at vetsaid.org.