Rock
Page: 26
When artists set out to promote a new album, their publicists often encourage them to have “a story.” Mark Oliver Everett, otherwise known as E, frontman and chief songwriter of the band EELS, has a lollapalooza of a tale. His father, Hugh Everett III, developed the Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. Today, his theory powers the Marvel multiverse and countless other movies, TV shows and novels about parallel worlds, but Everett wasn’t recognized for his work until late in his brief life. He died of a massive heart attack in 1982.
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
E, who was 19 then, discovered his father’s body, and, a decade later, endured the deaths of his sister, who committed suicide, and his mother, from cancer. Left without a family, he chronicled his experiences in EELS’ 1998 masterpiece, Electro-Shock Blues, and his inspirational and funny 2008 autobiography, Things the Grandchildren Should Know.
Trending on Billboard
In 2017, the Everett bloodline rebooted when E became a father at the age of 54. But the story does not end there. Shortly after the band’s post-pandemic Lockdown Hurricane tour, his CT scan revealed an aortic aneurysm, and E underwent open-heart surgery to have it repaired.
The health scare did not curb his creativity. On June 7, EELs released its 15th studio album since forming in 1996 (not counting his two solo records in 1992 and ’93). “After 25 or 30 years, whatever it’s been, our time has finally come. It’s finally EELS time,” he says — which, if you put an exclamation point at the end, is the album’s title.
EELS TIME!
Courtesy Photo
After a spate of hard-rocking songs, EELS TIME! finds E, now 61, in a contemplative and grateful mindset accentuated with a poppier sound. Below, E discusses the album’s collaborative efforts with All-American Rejects frontman Tyson Ritter, the poignant music video for “Time,” which depicts three generations of the Everett family, and much more.
You’ve experienced quite a lot over the last few years: fatherhood, divorce, open-heart surgery.
It’s always something right? I got used to that a long time ago.
You’ve had quite a lot of experience with mortality. How is dealing with your mortality different from dealing with the deaths of loved ones?
Well, the one thing I don’t have any experience in is hospital experience. I’ve never been in a hospital before, which was a great run. I’m thankful for that. I was in the hospital for a week, so that’s a big deal. It turned out great. I’m totally good as new now.
It’s great that you were staying on top of your health.
It’s the one good thing that came out of my father having a heart attack and dying at 51. Doctors would tell me heart stuff can be very hereditary so keep an eye on stuff. Get scans. Whatever the best scan is technology-wise, get that. It was a CT chest scan that discovered the problem. [My condition] was not related to what happened to my father. It’s a different thing, but it’s still a heart related-thing and it’s only because of his early death that I found out about it.
How did working with Tyson Ritter change your creative process? Did you collaborate in the same room or were you throwing stuff back and forth via email?
It’s funny because we found out we were neighbors and literally live three blocks away from each other. But we did it all remotely. It was still the pandemic and I have a little kid in school. I didn’t want to be the asshole that shuts down his school by getting Covid.
[embedded content]
You also feature on indie-pop artist meija’s “Possum.” How did that come about?
The thing with Tyson started with me singing on a song he did, too. And then the meija thing happened. That just came out of the blue. A mutual friend contacted me and said, “Hey, this guy would really like to have you on a song.” He sent me the song, and I was like, “Oh, this is cool. Yeah, I’ll do it.” I even went so far as to be in the video.
“If I’m Gonna Go Anywhere” is one of my favorite songs on the album. It has a Bobby Gillespie/Primal Scream vibe,
That one is all credit to Tyson, by the way. That’s his musical doing. I’m singing and writing lyrics mostly on that.
In the chorus, you sing that if you’re going anywhere, you’re going “there.” Where is “there”?
There is simply if you have a choice to make, why not make the nice choice. Why not choose love.
“Sweet Smile” is like that, too.
That’s exactly what “Sweet Smile” is about. Sometimes I’ll be walking down the sidewalk and I’ll realize I’m not scowling but I’m not smiling. I’ll think smile. And I’ll smile and it’s weird. It’s like, everything feels better and easier when you smile. With that song, I wanted to to write my version of [The Seekers] “Georgy Girl.” Just a nice, innocent song about walking down the street.
[embedded content]
“We Won’t See Her Like Again” seems to be about someone you lost. I realize not every song is autobiographical, but I’m wondering if you wrote that about your mother or sister, who you lost at a young age.
I wrote that one with Chet from the EELS, and I don’t feel like it was specifically about anybody at the time. A lot of the songs that I’ve done over the years I can’t access if there is a personal experience that I’m writing about. And years later, I’ll look back and go, “Oh, that’s what I was writing about.” I think it’s a coping mechanism that helps me write unfiltered — to not let myself know that I’m disclosing all these things about myself in some cases.
When I hear “I Can’t Believe It’s True,” I’m thinking could E have found love?
Yeah, I’m hoping that song will be one that people will play at their weddings. We’ve had songs go on to become really popular that we never would have thought of as a single at the time they were released. They take on this big life because of being played at weddings or whatever. Really, the inspiration in the back of my mind was thinking about my kid. So, maybe it can be played at weddings and births.
Has your son Archie formed his own band yet?
No, I got him a little drum set because he’s at the exact age that I was when I started playing drums. And I didn’t want to push it on him. He likes to bang around on everything, but he has not shown anywhere near the kind of interest I had in it so far. But that’s fine.
It’s there if he decides he’s into it, but also I think I should probably get him an instrument that would make [him] more money.
In the letter you published on the EELS website a few days ago, you wrote that you almost lost your mind during the first part of the Lockdown Hurricane show. What was overwhelming you?
First of all, I was super jetlagged. Going to Europe overnight; that always makes me crazy. We hadn’t played in almost four years or something because of the pandemic. You might remember the pandemic. So, we finally got out there to play, and it was an extreme culture shock for me because it was the double whammy of being a new father — a new divorced father — during those years of lockdown. I got really used to nobody caring about me. Do you know what I mean? When you’re a father, you’re the last person in the family anyone gives a shit about. Then suddenly, from the first show of the first tour in almost four years, it was like everybody super cared about me and it really fucked with my head. I didn’t know how to process it, and I didn’t know how to act. I don’t get stage fright normally. I’m usually very comfortable being on stage, but I started to have a panic attack right before the first show. For the first week, I was just insane. Then I got my bearings, and it was, “Okay, it’s coming back to me now. I know how to do this.” I’m sure a lot of people have gone through situations like that from being in such an extreme situation during the lockdown years and then being thrown out. Then it was great. It was like, “Oh, people. This is fun.”
Will you be touring behind this album?
I don’t know when we’re going on tour yet. The last one took a lot out of me. It was a good one, and we worked really hard. But since we just went, it might be too soon to go right now. Maybe we’ll go in late summer or the fall. We don’t know yet.
[embedded content]
“Song for You Know Who” is about not repeating the missteps of the past and forgiveness. Is that directed at yourself or someone else?
I’ll never tell. My favorite thing about that song is going to become my least favorite thing about it, too, which is that everyone I know is going to suspect it’s about them. I couldn’t resist calling it that because I just thought, it’s going to drive everybody crazy around me. But I’ll never tell.
The video for “Time” is very poignant and emotional to watch. And having read your book, understanding the sense that you had no family and to see now you do have family, it’s really touching. Did that idea just come to you or was it something that you wanted to do for a long time?
When I wrote and recorded the song I didn’t have the video concept in my mind. It wasn’t until later – I can’t remember what sparked I, but I just thought, “Oh, wait a minute. There’s three verses. We can do photos of my dad in the first verse.” It fits the theme of each verse.
Then the second one where it says, “I’m riding on the train, I’m ready to stop anywhere and see what’s out there,” that’s like young me going into teenage me and EELS me. Then the last verse is about how I want to be here and I don’t want to ever leave because I like being close to the ones I love, and that’s my son.
The beard looks very strong in the “Time” video
That was filmed the day after I came home from our tour, and I couldn’t wait to get rid of the beard. That was my pandemic beard, and I was like, “Oh, we’re finally going on tour. I’ll save it for that. It’ll look cool onstage or whatever.” Then I couldn’t wait to get rid of it by the end of the tour because a beard like that is a lot of maintenance and a lot of work. So I called the director of the video and said, “I’m going to get rid of the beard.” He was like, “No, just keep it for one day after the tour and we’ll shoot it then.” The next day I trimmed it down extensively.
Okay, so you’re not in Fidel Castro territory anymore.
At the moment, no. But it can always come back. It comes back overnight if I want it to. I’ve got a lot of testosterone.
Veteran Southern California pop punkers The Offspring announced the details of their upcoming 11th studio album, SUPERCHARGED, on Friday morning (June 7) and dropped the LP’s first single, the head-bopping “Make It All Right.” The 10-track record is due out on Oct. 11 via Concord Records. In a statement, singer Dexter Holland said that SUPERCHARGED […]
From Motown to mobility, the “Live From Detroit: The Concert at Michigan Central” show Thursday night (June 6) covered many bases of the Motor City’s fabled music heritage — as it re-opened a historic landmark making a comeback from desolation.
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
The event brought out the hometown hero likes of Eminem (who co-executive produced the concert with his manager, Paul Rosenberg), and who made the crowd go nuts when he hopped on stage for a surprise four-song mini-set that included the live debut of his new single, “Houdini” and a collaboration with Jelly Roll.
Diana Ross, Jack White, Big Sean, Slum Village and gospel greats the Clark Sisters and Kierra Sheard were also on hand to celebrate the refurbished Michigan Central. The former railroad station in the city’s southwest side had been shuttered since 1988 and became what Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan called “a symbol of our decline” as it fell into disrepair. The Ford Motor Co. purchased the building in 2018, spending a reported $940 million to turn it into a center for advanced technological development in transportation and other fields.
Trending on Billboard
That meant a lot to White, who grew up in the same neighborhood. Before the show, he told reporters he’d ride his bicycle over to the site during the 80s and watched it deteriorate as he began his music career. “If you’d have asked me then if this place was ever coming back… there’s no way. It’s just too massive a job,” White said, calling the renovation, “just incredible.”
It was also personal for Patti Smith, who attended to accept a special pre-show Michigan Central Honor — along with White, Slum Village and the late J Dilla — for contributions as global ambassadors for Detroit. Smith, who shared her honor with her late husband and MC5 veteran Fred “Sonic” Smith (daughter Jesse Paris accompanied her), told Billboard that, “Fred loved the train station, and he would fantasize about it being restored and opened to the people. He really talked about it quite a bit, so I know that this would have made him very happy. It means something to me that there honoring him, as he should be, and I’m happy to be included with him.”
During the Honors ceremony Smith also represented Eminem by reading a 2009 love letter he wrote to Detroit professing his love for the city.
The show itself — which was streamed on Peacock and will be edited into a one-hour NBC special at 7 p.m. ET/PT on Sunday (June 9) — was a nearly two-hour party celebrating the city and its musical heritage, but with a global perspective. “We’ve been invested in trying to rebrand the image of the city and how people see it for a long time,” Rosenberg, who worked in conjunction with Jesse Collins Entertainment, explained to Billboard prior to the show. “The challenge was, ‘What kind of picture can we paint here that’s going to be interesting not just locally but nationally?’ We wanted to make a compelling program that’s going to interest people across the country, not just people who are familiar with Detroit.
Rosenberg added that he and Eminem used the adage “as goes Detroit, so goes the nation” — from a 1942 Arthur Pond essay in The Atlantic — “as a framework… all these ideas about how the city is viewed not just locally but nationally to help frame the program.”
Starting with a Motown legend didn’t hurt, of course. Ross, clad in a mass of tangerine tulle, began the night with singalong version of her solo hits “I’m Coming Up” and “Upside Down,” plus the title track from her 2021 album Thank You before finishing with a soaring take of the Supremes’ anthem “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.” “It’s so good to be home,” Ross said before leaving the stage. “I love you so much.”
Big Sean shared the love as well, saluting Michigan Central as “a diamond that came out of the rough” while delivering a three-song set that included the new “On Up” — a new album is coming this summer, he told the crowd — as well as hits “Blessings” and “Bounce Back,” accompanied by Adam Blackstone & the BBE All Star Band. A Detroit legend who wasn’t there, Bob Seger, was nevertheless saluted by a trio of Melissa Etheridge (“Mainstreet”), Fantasia (“Shakedown”) and Jelly Roll (“Turn the Page,” sporting a Detroit Tigers baseball cap) before the three united to close the tribute with a truncated but exuberant take on “Old Time Rock and Roll.”
“I’ll be Forever Soul, but there’s a little rock in me,” Fantasia told Billboard, invoking the name of her new company. “I wanted that challenge.”
Common was an out-of-towner in the house — though, being from Chicago, he told the Detroit crowd “we’re cousins” — as he recited “Didn’t One Know,” his tone poem about J Dilla. Slum Village also gave props to the late Baatin and Amp Fiddler as the duo performed Fail in Love” and “Get Dis Money,” the latter with Dilla’s younger brother Illa J and both with the Blackstone band. “We’re always gonna represent the legacy,” the group’s T3 said before the concert. Common joined Slum Village to close the segment with a poignant rendition of “The Light.”
The Clark Sisters, in glittery gold dresses and joined by the Greater Emmanuel Choir, then took the estimated 20,000 fans to church with “Livin’” and “Blessed & Highly Favored” before backing Sheard — daughter of Karen Clark-Sheard — on a powerhouse version of her “Miracles.” Sheard stayed on stage for the Clarks’ signature hit “You Brought the Sunshine,” a stunner even if the sky was turning dark.
A pair of DJs, Theo Parrish and Sky Jetta, represented Detroit’s famed techno heritage, while White brought the rock and the White Stripes with “some songs that were written a couple blocks from here” — debuting a new two-keyboard band lineup on “Hotel Yorba” and a “Seven Nation Army” that was literally on fire as (planned) pyrotechnics and flames erupted to accent the anthem.
And while Eminem — who filmed parts of the video for his 2009 single “Beautiful” in the then-abandoned Michigan Central — was not billed as a performer when the show was announced, it surprised few that he closed the evening. Joined by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra the hoodied rapper presented the live debut of “Houdini,” the just-released first single from his upcoming The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grace) album (July 5), then “Sing For the Moment” with Jelly Roll, “Welcome 2 Detroit” with Trick Trick and a bombastic “Not Afraid,” which was followed by a short show-ending fireworks display.
“Timing worked out for us fortunately great because we just dropped a single — that wasn’t always the case when we agreed to jump on board,” Rosenberg noted. “We weren’t sure we were going to have new music out. It happened to work out great, and it became an opportunity to perform a new song.”
Dionne Harmon, president of Jesse Collins Entertainment — which also produces Super Bowl halftime shows and a variety of awards shows, among other events — told Billboard that the universal appeal of the artists ultimately opened the door for “Live From Detroit” to be a streaming and network special. “Everybody knew this wasn’t just a Detroit story or an American story, but a global story,” she said. “So we started looking for a partner who could help us tell this story. We’ve done a lot of work with NBC in the past; when we took this to them they fell in love with the story and the city, the same way we did.”
The performers, meanwhile, bought into the idea of telling that story together. “These things, you never know how they’re gonna turn out, who’s gonna show up and who’s gonna be invited,” said White, who attended the same high school as Ross and Big Sean. “When they were first talking about Eminem and Dian Ross and Slum Village I thought, ‘Wow, if that really happens..’”
“It’s one of the biggest events Detroit’s ever seen,” Slum Village’s T3 gushed. “Even the other artists I just met today, like Jelly Roll, which was super cool… We’re having a good time out here, and it’s just a beautiful event.”
Bon Jovi is back! The band dropped its 16th studio album, Forever, on Friday (June 7). The album comes four years after 2020, which was released, as the title suggests, in 2020. The album peaked at No. 19 on the Billboard 200 albums chart upon its release. Frontman Jon Bon Jovi chronicled his difficult journey […]
Twenty One Pilots and Bring Me the Horizon score new No. 1s on Billboard’s rock album charts dated June 8, with the former’s Clancy debuting atop the Top Rock Albums survey and the latter’s Post Human: Next Gen entering atop the Top Hard Rock Albums list.
Clancy bows with 143,000 equivalent album units earned in the U.S. in the week ending May 30, according to Luminate. The sum largely encompasses 113,000 album sales and 29,000 streaming-equivalent units. The week is the biggest in units for any title on Top Rock Albums in 2024 and the best since Zach Bryan’s self-titled LP started with 200,000 on the Sept. 9, 2023, survey.
Clancy marks Twenty One Pilots’ fourth Top Rock Albums leader. The duo first led with Blurryface in 2015, followed by 2018’s Trench and 2021’s Scaled and Icy.
The new set also begins at No. 2 on Top Rock & Alternative Albums and Top Alternative Albums, where Billie Eilish’s Hit Me Hard and Soft reigns for a second week (145,000 units).
On the all-genre Billboard 200, Clancy debuts at No. 3, the act’s third top three entry.
The entirety of Clancy’s 13-song tracklist reaches the Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart, led by “The Craving” at No. 20 with 5.9 million official U.S. streams, 3.9 million radio audience impressions and 1,000 downloads sold. The song, the latest promoted single from the LP, concurrently debuts at Nos. 23 and 40 on Alternative Airplay and Pop Airplay, respectively. Lead single “Overcompensate” peaked at No. 2 on Alternative Airplay in May.
Bring Me the Horizon’s Post Human: Next Gen starts at No. 1 on the Top Hard Rock Albums chart with 19,000 units. It’s the band’s second leader, following That’s the Spirit for a week in 2015.
Post Human: Next Gen also begins at No. 10 on Top Rock & Alternative Albums, marking the Oli Sykes-fronted act’s sixth top 10, all logged since 2010’s There Is a Hell Believe Me I’ve Seen It. There Is a Heaven Let’s Keep It a Secret.
“Top 10 Statues That Cried Blood,” the new album’s latest radio single, concurrently debuts at No. 1 on Hot Hard Rock Songs with 2.6 million streams and 266,000 airplay audience impressions. It also starts at No. 39 on Mainstream Rock Airplay.
The Plain White T’s are just like everyone else. The group posted a video of them hearing Snowd4y and Drake’s parody remix of their Billboard Hot 100-topping hit song “Hey There Delilah.” And, like the majority of rap fans, they thought “Wah Gwan Delilah” was made using AI, too. Explore See latest videos, charts and […]
Zach Bryan’s “Pink Skies” debuts at No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot Rock & Alternative Songs and Hot Rock Songs charts dated June 8, becoming his third leader on each list. The harmonica-infused single bows with 31.6 million official streams, 166,000 radio airplay audience impressions and 10,000 downloads sold in the United States from its May […]
Sublime is back on Billboard’s Alternative Airplay chart with “Feel Like That,” a collaboration with Stick Figure. The song debuts at No. 35 on the June 8-dated ranking.
“Feel Like That,” which also features credited vocals from late Sublime frontman Bradley Nowell, is the first Alternative Airplay hit credited to Sublime – and not its separate, subsequent iteration Sublime With Rome – since “Doin’ Time,” which hit No. 28 in November 1997.
In between “Doin’ Time” and “Feel Like That,” Sublime With Rome – featuring new vocalist Rome Ramirez – reached the ranking four times in 2011-19, led by the No. 4-peaking “Panic” in 2011.
Sublime With Rome, in addition to Ramirez, initially included previous Sublime members Eric Wilson and Bud Gaugh; Gaugh departed in 2011 and Wilson followed earlier this year. Gaugh and Wilson then reformed Sublime with Nowell’s son Jakob on vocals and guitar. “Feel Like That” features both Jakob and Bradley on vocals, the latter via a recording from early 1996. Bradley Nowell died of an overdose that May.
Sublime reunited late last year and has since performed at Coachella.
The original incarnation of Sublime didn’t reach Alternative Airplay until after Nowell’s death. “What I Got” reigned for three weeks beginning in October 1996, while “Santeria” and “Wrong Way” each hit No. 3 in 1997, ahead of the aforementioned “Doin’ Time.”
As for Stick Figure, “Feel Like That” is the band’s first Alternative Airplay chart entry, as well as the six-piece’s premiere rank on any Billboard airplay survey. The band first graced a Billboard chart in 2009 when Smoke Stack peaked at No. 8 on Reggae Albums, on which Stick Figure now boasts four No. 1s.
Currently a standalone single, “Feel Like That” also bows at No. 43 on the all-rock-format, audience-based Rock & Alternative Airplay chart with 801,000 audience impressions in the week ending May 30, according to Luminate. Its first-week download count of 2,000 sparks a No. 8 debut on Rock Digital Song Sales.
Jon Bon Jovi wasn’t sure if his band would ever record another album. The Jersey rock icon whose signature raspy vocals lifted his eponymous Rock and Roll Hall of Fame band to global superstardom in the 1980s and 1990s thanks to such iconic hits as “Livin’ on a Prayer,” “You Give Love a Bad Name” and “It’s My Life” chronicled his long, hard road back from vocal cord surgery in 2022 in the recent Hulu series Thank You, Goodnight – The Bon Jovi Story. And in a new interview with EW he talked how that scary career roadblock helped inspire the band’s new album, Forever, which is out on Friday (June 7).
“I went into this surgery and I had a lot of time on my hands — all I could really do was sit around and start to think about songs,” Bon Jovi told EW. “I started to feel joy again. And we — the collective we, who lived through COVID — we’d all come out of that fog, and we were interacting again. There was a new appreciation for life. And I was having this new appreciation for my body. And it led to all these songs.”
Trending on Billboard
The result was a 12-track album recorded by Bon Jovi and bandmates keyboardist David Bryan, drummer Tico Torres, bassist Hugh McDonald, guitarist Phil X, percussionist Everett Bradley and rhythm guitarist John Shanks that the singer said the crew recorded in a brisk seven weeks. “Nothing was on delay. It just flowed,” Bon Jovi said of the album that features the soaring “Legendary” and talkbox-assisted “Living Proof,” which he wrote in just two days.
Bon Jovi also dropped in for a chat with Stephen Colbert on the Late Show on Wednesday night (June 6), where he smiled and kept his secrets when the host asked what it was like to be “young and beautiful” on the road in the 1980s. “If I were to write a book it would be called, The Best Time I Never Had,” the 62-year-old silver fox said with a grin, joking that he tells his children that he didn’t party and went straight home after shows.
Bon Jovi credited his bandmates with believing in his dream 40 years ago, saying that the new album got its name after he realized that, “these songs are going to outlive us until long after we’re gone.” He noted that he’s “well on the road to recovery” from the vocal surgery chronicled in the four-part documentary series, joking that now was the time to commemorate the band’s 40th anniversary because he has no idea if he’ll be around for their 50th.
The singer who has dabbled in acting over the years described how he got his big screen chops up as a young rocker after a promoter flew them on a private jet to a gig, after which Bon Jovi says he repeatedly convinced other promoters to celebrate the band’s burgeoning success with their breakthrough Slippery When Wet album by flying them to the next gig… on a private jet.
Colbert also congratulated Bon Jovi on the recent weddings of two of his sons; Jack Bongiovi married Stranger Things star Millie Bobby Brown in May, just weeks after son Jesse married longtime love Jesse Light in Las Vegas. Asked if he’s ever been pressed into service at a wedding to sing one of his songs, Bon Jovi told a funny story about a friend’s son’s wedding where he was “willing,” but not really looking forward to jumping on stage.
When the trumpet player spontaneously began playing the iconic bass line from “Livin’ on a Prayer,” for what he described as a “Salvation Army” band version of the song, the reluctant vocalist said he “sang the s–t” out of it, as one does.
During the double-segment sit-down, Bon Jovi bragged about the rest stop named after him in New Jersey and his early days working around the corner at the Power Station recording studio. One of his favorite memories from the time when he was a teenager “gofer,” he said, was when he watched David Bowie and Freddie Mercury sing “Under Pressure” through the studio window. “I saw them sing that vocal,” he told an astonished Colbert.
Watch Bon Jovi on The Late Show below.
[embedded content]
[embedded content]
Billie Joe Armstrong knows a thing or two about what it takes to rock a stadium crowd. So when the Green Day singer/guitarist attended one of Taylor Swift‘s Eras Tour shows in Lyon, France at Groupama Stadium over the weekend he came away super-impressed by… well, all of it. The punk veteran posted a pic […]