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Smashing Pumpkins leader Billy Corgan and wife Chloé Mendel welcomed their third child on Tuesday (March 18). The couple shared the news with People magazine, revealing that Juno Corgan was born during the “wee hours” at the couple’s Highland, Park, IL home and weighed 9.9 lbs. and was 22 inches long. “My wife, Chloé is […]
Travis Barker teased a new musical era for Yellowcard while giving a tour of his studio. The Blink-182 drummer showed off all his equipment with Reverb in a video shared this week, where he shared his favorite drum kit. “This is my main kit. I’ve tried all different variations; nothing beats this stainless steel DW. […]
The depth and detail in the 464-page Heartbreaker: A Memoir (Grand Central Publishing) is impressive — and surprising.
To Mike Campbell as well.
The Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers guitarist tells Billboard that he was actually keeping a journal when the band (then known as Mudcrutch) moved to Los Angeles in 1974 from the members’ native Florida. “I did it for the first couple of months,” Campbell recalls. “Every day the entry was, ‘We went into the studio. We couldn’t get the track. We couldn’t get the track.’ It was so depressing I just quit writing it down. But the stuff was still stuck in my memory.” And he credits his co-author, novelist Ari Surdoval (Double Nickels), with helping to pull those out of him.
“As I started thinking back on my memories, a lot of things just popped out that I didn’t know were in there,” Campbell says. “It’s kinda crazy how the mind works.”
Heartbreaker offers the proverbial long, strange trip through the 75-year-old Campbell’s life from an impoverished, single-parent upbringing in Florida through his discovery of guitar and music, the Heartbreakers’ ascent and his own success as a sideman and songwriter (starting with Don Henley’s “The Boys of Summer” in 1984), right up through his current endeavor leading the Dirty Knobs, a band he formed as a side project more than a decade ago which has become Campbell’s primary musical outlet since Petty’s death in 2017. It’s spirit-lifting in spots, heart-breaking in others, and it offers a deep and revealing dive that will please Petty fans and guitar geeks alike.
“I didn’t want to write a sex, drugs and rock n’ roll book,” Campbell says. “I wanted to talk about the creative energy for the songs and the personal relationships between me and my bandmates. And I wanted to show the struggle it took to get where we got; it wasn’t just handed to us, and I wanted to tell the whole story of how we started out really poor and sacrificed for many years before we saw any income. So that was my basic thing.
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“Mostly I wanted to touch base on the creative mystery of songs and where they come from. I set those boundaries at the beginning — we’re not gonna talk about stupid things that every rock star writes about. I don’t find that very interesting.”
Campbell does check off all those boxes with Heartbreaker. There’s minimal sex; he’s been married to his wife Marcie for nearly 50 years, and their meeting at a Halloween party is sweetly recounted in the book. There are some drugs — his own use as well as his bandmates, including Petty’s heroin addiction — and plenty of rock n’ roll, documenting not only the Heartbreakers but also Campbell’s Forrest Gump-like connection to the likes of Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Stevie Nicks and Fleetwood Mac (whom he toured with during 2018-19), Johnny Cash and more.
“I did find myself just looking around and going, ‘How did I get here?’ a lot,” Campbell says with a laugh. “When a song would come, ‘Why me? How did I get so lucky that this song came out of the air to me, of all people?’”
Amidst his positive intentions, however, Campbell is also brutally honest about the sometimes-turbulent inner workings of the Heartbreakers, ranging from Petty’s ascent to frontman status and the group’s business structure to the delicate dynamics exacerbated by forceful personalities.
Mike Campbell ‘Heartbreaker’
Courtesy Photo
“I wanted to be real, and I wanted to be truthful,” says Campbell, who co-produced several Heartbreakers and Petty solo albums, as well as the posthumous 2022 box set Live at the Fillmore 1997. He also co-wrote Billboard Hot 100 top 40 hits such as “Refugee,” “You Got Lucky,” “Runnin’ Down a Dream’ and others. “I don’t want to dwell on other people’s drug and alcohol problems. I have not read the book Tom put out (Conversations with Tom Petty, 2005), but I understand he talks about all that himself. I wanted to illuminate my relationship with my brothers in the Heartbreakers. We all come from the South and we grew up in a very similar way, and I wanted to show how special that brotherhood was. I wanted to let people look behind the curtain, see a little bit about what it’s like being in a band like this.
“Bands are very delicate creatures. It doesn’t take much to break a band up. You have all the egos and personalities and sometimes wives or girlfriends get involved, money…. But our group, the music always outweighed it. It was so important to keep the music alive that nobody’s wives or arguments over money, as far as I was concerned, was ever going to break it up. It was too special…and we cherished it.”
To that end Campbell says he shared excerpts of the book with those who were mentioned, including Petty’s daughter Adria, who’s been running the estate, keyboardist Benmont Tench, Dylan, Roger McGuinn, Jeff Lynne and others. “I wanted them to sign off that they were comfortable with it,” Campbell says. “Nobody had anything but thanks for how I treated them. Nobody said, ‘No, you can’t put me in the book.’”
“The parts that I read I thought were great,” says Tench, who’s waiting for the audio version of Heartbreaker, which Campbell recorded himself, to come out. “Mike’s memory is much more reliable than mine; I’m glad he’s writing it, and not me.”
Campbell’s great affection for Petty and the other Heartbreakers aside, he considers Dylan — whom he met during sessions for Dylan’s 1985 Empire Burlesque album before the Heartbreakers joined him on tour during 1986-87 — the most surreal character in the book. “He is a mystery genius, a beautiful creature,” Campbell notes. “He’s so enigmatic, but so brilliant. I’ve met a lot of my heroes, from George Harrison to Johnny Cash; they’re all intimidating and have the aura. But Bob has this special thing around him that’s intriguing ’cause he’s so brilliant and he’s so mystical and so hard to read. But he’s so good.”
A surprising thread throughout Heartbreaker, however, is Campbell’s professed insecurity, an inferiority complex that finds him taking much of the blame for any of the band’s shortcomings of failures. “That’s a therapist question,” he says when it’s pointed out. “I think maybe if I dig deep and look at it, maybe my parents’ divorce affected me in a very deep way, where my whole world was broken apart. Throughout my whole life I’ve tried to build a world that won’t break up, and keep it together — my band and my marriage. So maybe that’s why. Maybe it’s genetics. I don’t really know the answer, but…I’m still here doing it, so I think I’m dealing with it alright.”
Campbell has three author appearances slated so far for Heartbreaker: March 19 at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark; March 20 at the Powerhouse Arena in Brooklyn; and March 21 at Strand in New York City. Meanwhile, he’s been working on songs for the Dirty Knob’s follow-up to last year’s Vagabonds, Virgins & Misfits, with, he says, “several songs I’m excited about” already in hand. The quartet, which now includes former Heartbreakers drummer Steve Ferrone, will join Chris Stapleton for All-American Road Show stops on June 12-13 in Grand Rapids, Mich., and will be playing a selection of summer shows with Blackberry Smoke starting July 25-26 at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium.
“I’m just busy,” Campbell notes. “I love my band and I love the songs I’m doing and the crowds we have so far. I’m writing all the time, and I’m happy. I’m really blessed. It’s been a great life, and it’s not nearly over.”
Machine Gun Kelly pays rocking tribute to one of his best friends, late Australian snowboarder Luke “The Dingo” Trembath in the new video for “Your Name Forever.” The Sam Cahill-directed clip features MGK performing the high-adrenaline rap-rock tune on a rooftop overlooking the Hollywood Hills interspersed with footage of Trembath’s many friends in the music and extreme sports world gathered in front of a massive portrait of the beloved powder rider painted by muralist Royyal Dog.
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“I never thought the last time I’d seen you would be the last time I’d seen you/ I hopped on the bike that you gave me the day I rode to nowhere, hoping that I’d reach you/ The last argument that we had, I said things I shouldn’t have/ I hurt you and I didn’t mean to/ Your coat’s on the chair in my house right now,” MGK sings urgently on the high-octane tune that features background vocals from Avenged Sevenfold’s M. Shadows, Bring Me the Horizon’s Oli Sykes, Mod Sun and lead guitar from A7X Synyster Gates, who were all friends of Dingo’s as well.
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“i’ma miss you brother. 😞💔🕊️ i hope this song honors your epic legacy. none of this will be the same without you,” MGK wrote on Instagram on Tuesday (March 18). In an earlier reel last week featuring pictures of the old friends from over the years, Kelly wrote, “crazy…i didn’t even cry this hard when my dad died. 💔😞🕊️ i’ve lost a lot of friends, but i’ve never lost a brother. we’ll never get another Dingo on this planet. a true rockstar without ever needing to make a song, the most loyal, loud, charismatic, funny, and annoying human i’ve ever had the honor of knowing.”
He added, “i’ll miss your epic toasts, i’ll miss dapping you up and my hand hurting everytime because you had some odd amount of Australian strength goin on, i’ll miss your bellyflops, i’ll miss watching you walk through the door and lifting the energy of every pivotal event in my adult life, i’ll miss you pissing me off, but most of all i’ll miss your laugh. you were the glue between all of us,” before alluding to the difficulty of thinking about a world without his pal as the singer awaits the birth of his first child with ex-Megan Fox. “i feel like your up there with my new child, dressed up in a hilarious costume making them laugh, getting ready to send them down. i couldn’t ask for a more bittersweet birth blessing,” MGK wrote.
The video features years of footage of loud and brash party-bringer Dingo hanging backstage and goofing around with MGK, as well as a party of black-clad mourners releasing doves in his honor at the mural dedicdation; sponsor Monster Energy confirmed on Feb. 28 that Trembath died at age 38, with no cause of death revealed so far.
“Tell me, did you know it was time to say goodbye?/ Tell me, did the heavens align where angels fly?” MGK sings on the chorus. “What happens, what happens when you kiss the sky?/ Tell me, did you know it was time to say goodbye?”
The clip ends with an extended cut Dingo hanging with MGK over the years, sharing laughs and silly moments backstage, including one in which the rapper/rocker bursts into tears and wonders, “I literally feel like we had the same conversation last year. In this same spot. Are we going to grow up and be doing this when we’re 50?”
Watch the “Your Name Forever” video below.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs announced the dates for a residency-like run of 2025 international shows that will feature the band playing their greatest hits and deep cuts in theaters in the U.K., Mexico and the U.S. this summer.
“Hi, we’ve missed you, they don’t miss you like we miss you. Out of a deep desire to reconnect with our band family and you our lovely fans, YYY’s are embarking on a series of very special shows this summer,” the band said in an announcement on Instagram on Monday (March 17).
“The dearly departed David Lynch would say: all you need to do is turn on the light and the darkness goes. To let our love light shine we will be digging deep into our back catalogue,” they revealed about tour that will hit the road a quarter century after their founding in New York. “We’ll be playing songs that are rarely (if ever) performed, alongside all time favorites with new arrangements to delight…and yes there will be acoustic guitars and strings too. We’d love for you to join us for these intimate performances in beautiful iconic theaters to celebrate 25 years of Yeah Yeah Yeahs, not a bad seat in the house!”
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The pre-sale for the tour will kick off on Wednesday (March 19) at 10 a.m. local time, followed by a general on-sale on Friday (March 21) at 10 a.m. local time; click here for details on signing up for the pre-sale. At press time no support acts had been announced yet.
The band’s most recent album was 2022’s Cool It Down.
Check out the tour announcement and dates below.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs 2025 tour
June 16 — Manchester, UK @ O2 ApolloJune 18 — London, UK @ Royal Albert HallJune 19 — London, UK @ Royal Albert HallJune 30 — Mexico City, MX @ Teatro MetrópolitanJuly 1 — Mexico City, MX @ Teatro MetrópolitanJuly 9 — Los Angeles, CA @ Orpheum TheatreJuly 10 — Los Angeles, CA @ Orpheum TheatreJuly 11 — Los Angeles, CA @ Orpheum TheatreJuly 14 — San Francisco, CA @ Davies Symphony HallJuly 15 — San Francisco, CA @ Davies Symphony HallJuly 18 — Nashville, TN @ Ryman AuditoriumJuly 19 — Nashville, TN @ Ryman AuditoriumJuly 22 — Chicago, IL @ The Chicago TheatreJuly 23 — Chicago, IL @ The Chicago TheatreJuly 29 — New York, NY @ Beacon TheatreJuly 30 — New York, NY @ Beacon Theatre
Dropkick Murphys singer Ken Casey has never been shy about his disdain for Donald Trump. The vocalist for the “Warriors Code” band was at it again on St. Patrick’s Day on Monday (March 17) when he dissed the commander-in-chief for being what he described as the opposite of a member in good standing of his Massachusetts-bred “Wicked Sensitive Crew.”
“One other thing Dropkick Murphys has always been about is a lot of songs about standing with your friends and family and the things you believe in, whether it’s politics, or just how you were raised. And Donald Trump is the exact opposite of everything we sing about,” Casey told Meidastouch in an interview.
“He’s turned on his friends. He’s turned on America’s friends and our allies. He’s a rat and a coward when you think of it that way,” Casey said of the second-term Republican who has spent his first two months in office launching trade wars with Canada and Mexico, pulling out of international climate and aid pacts and siding with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin in his unprovoked war against Ukraine.
“America shouldn’t be turning on our allies,” Casey added.
The latest broadside from Casey against Trump is in keeping with the singer’s disdain for 47, which lately has come in the form of calling out fans who rock Trump gear at the group’s shows. Last month at a gig in Clearwater, FL, Casey called out a man wearing a shirt and hat supporting Trump and noted that the Murphys merch is all made in America before making a “friendly” $100 bet about where the MAGA gear was manufactured.
“If you lose the bet, we switch shirts, OK? If you win the bet, I give you $100 and the shirt,” the singer told the man before revealing to fans that the MAGA shirt was made in Nicaragua. “He’s taking the shirt off. We’re taking crime off the streets,” Casey joked.
Then, during one of their annual St. Patrick’s Day shows at MGM Music Hall at Boston’s Fenway Park on Sunday (March 16), the singer called out an attendee who waved around a MAGA hat the gig.
“If you’re in a room full of people and you want to know who’s in a cult, how do you know who’s in a cult?” Casey asked the crowd. “They’ve been holding up a f—ing hat the whole night to represent a president.” He then spoke to Trump-supporting fans in the house directly. “This is America, there’s no kings here,” he said, adding, “Anyway, if you mind, sir, we’re gonna play a song about our grandparents and people who fought Nazis in the war and s—. So if you could just shut the f— up for five minutes.”
Casey also described the man’s MAGA hat as the “Elon Musk True Nazi edition,” seemingly in reference to the style of hat billionaire and X owner Musk has been wearing as he leads the so-called Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) dismantling of the federal government. As of Tuesday morning (March 18), the official Dropkick X account had been suspended, with no clear explanation offered for why the action was taken. A spokesperson for the band had not returned a request for comment at press time about the suspension.
During Trump’s inauguration in January, Musk twice made what was widely described as a Nazi-like salute, throwing up two rapid, straight-armed hand gestures during a celebration of Trump’s second swearing-in, drawing comparisons to the signature “Sieg Heil” salute of reviled Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. And on Friday, Musk shared a post by an X user that falsely claimed that Hitler, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin and People’s Republic of China founder Mao Zedong were not responsible for the deaths of millions of people under their watch, but that “public sector workers” were; Musk later deleted the post.
Watch Casey call out Trump supporters during the Boston show and see his interview below.
Dropkick Murphys’ lead singer, Ken Casey: Dropkick Murphys has always been about standing with your friends, your family, and the things you believe in.Trump is the exact opposite of everything we sing about. He’s turned on America’s friends and allies—he’s a rat and a coward. pic.twitter.com/aDNTffHc9n— Acyn (@Acyn) March 17, 2025
Veteran rockers Collective Soul and Live announced the dates for their co-headlining Summer Unity 2025 U.S. amphitheater tour on Monday (March 17). The 30-date Live Nation-produced outing is slated to kick off on July 8 with a show at the White River Amphitheatre in Auburn, WA and hit outdoor venues in California, Missouri, Michigan, New York, Virginia, Florida, Georgia, Texas, Colorado and North Carolina before winding down on August 29 at the Hollywood Casino at Penn Race Course in Grantville, PA.
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In a dramatic three-minute video announcing the tour Collective Soul singer Ed Roland sets up for an acoustic set at a bar in St. Catharines, Ontario on one side of the screen while Live singer Ed Kowalczyk tunes his guitar on the other side in a New York pub. As the tock clicks, Kowalczyk breaks into his band’s iconic hit “I Alone,” while Roland strums out his group’s signature song, “Shine.”
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The performances are so intense they begin to make beer pints shudder as Kowalczyk zeroes in on a golden leprechaun throwing up the metal hand sign before the little guy explodes and lands both men in a black void. “Either I’ve reached enlightenment or I’m having a stroke,” Roland says to Kowalczyk when he wonders how they ended up in the blank space.
“Are we… dead?” Kowlaczyk asks. “No, you crazy cat. I think we’re in a cool Irish pub,” Roland responds in the video timed with Monday’s St. Patrick’s Day celebration. “You ever feel like we’re the same person, but stretched across two different versions of reality?” Roland asks. “Like we were once one singular Ed, but something, an event, a cosmic schism split us into two?”
They don’t agree on the vagaries of the universe, but the two old friends are totally simpatico about hitting the road again together, and enjoying the weird smell of tour buses and the allure of that sweet, sweet arena show catering.
“+LIVE+ is thrilled to be joining forces with the amazing Collective Soul! The great vibes between our two bands on and offstage is something we have both enjoyed for years, and here we come in 2025! This will be a very special night of music for all of the fans; I know everyone is gonna get rocked and uplifted right along with us…come on out!,” said Kowalczyk in a statement.
Roland added, “It was August 1994, and we, Collective Soul, were on our way to Woodstock. As our van pulled up to the grounds, another one pulled up beside us and out jumped the band +LIVE+. We became immediate friends, exchanging guitar picks with each other as soon as we met. Since that day, the Ed and Ed show has been nothing but pure, genuine friendship, and rock and roll. We’re excited that 31 years later, we still not only enjoy each other’s company, but enjoy playing music. It’s going to be a fun summer sharing it with fans, friends and +LIVE+.”
Joining the bands on the tour — their first together since a 2008 co-headlining run — will be Our Lady Peace and Greylin James Rue. Tickets will be available starting with an artist presale kicking off on Tuesday (March 18) at 10 a.m. local time, followed by additional presales throughout the week ahead of a general onsale starting on Friday (March 21) at 10 a.m. local time here.
Watch the Summer Unity Tour promo video and see the tour dates below.
Summer Unity 2025 tour dates
July 8 – Auburn, WA @ White River Amphitheatre
July 9 – Bend, OR @ Hayden Homes Amphitheater
July 11 – Wheatland, CA @ Toyota Amphitheatre
July 13 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Utah First Credit Union Amphitheatre
July 16 – Kansas City, MO @ Starlight Theatre
July 17 – St. Louis, MO @ Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre
July 20 – Huber Heights, OH @ Rose Music Center*
July 22 – Sterling Heights, MI @ Michigan Lottery Amphitheatre
July 26 – Buffalo, NY @ Darien Lake Amphitheater
July 27 – Bridgeport, CT @ Hartford HealthCare Amphitheater
July 30 – Bangor, ME @ Maine Savings Amphitheater
July 31 – Wantagh, NY @ Northwell at Jones Beach Theater
August 2 – Bethel, NY @ Bethel Woods Center for the Arts
August 3 – Bristow, VA @ Jiffy Lube Live
August 5 – Greensboro, NC @ White Oak Amphitheatre
August 6 – Charleston, SC @ Credit One Stadium
August 8 – Jacksonville, FL @ Daily’s Place
August 9 – Alpharetta, GA @ Ameris Bank Amphitheatre
August 10 – Nashville, TN @ FirstBank Amphitheater
August 13 – Irving, TX @ The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory
August 15 – Houston, TX @ 713 Music Hall
August 16 – Austin, TX @ Germania Insurance Amphitheater
August 18 – Albuquerque, NM @ Isleta Amphitheater
August 19 – Denver, CO @ Fiddler’s Green Amphitheater*
August 21 – Lincoln, NE @ Pinewood Bowl Theater*
August 22 – Ridgedale, MO @ Thunder Ridge Nature Arena
August 23 – Albertville, AL @ Sand Mountain Amphitheater*
August 26 – Simpsonville, SC @ CCNB Amphitheatre
August 28 – Charlotte, NC @ Skyla Credit Union Amphitheatre
August 29 – Grantville, PA @ Hollywood Casino at Penn Race Course*
*Non-Live Nation Date
Journey fans were bummed when their favorite band had to hot-foot it off the stage on Friday (March 14) just five songs into their set at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo at NRG Stadium. In fan video of the incident, singer Arnel Pineda was just reaching the second verse of the group’s iconic 1981 […]
Universal Pictures Content Group announced on Friday (March 14) that it has begun production on a documentary chronicling heavy metal icons Iron Maiden‘s 50-year career. The currently untitled film is slated for release internationally in the fall, with U.S. theatrical distribution details to be confirmed later.
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According to a release, the long-awaited doc is an “emotive journey through Iron Maiden’s 50 Year history told from the perspective of both the band and some of their most devoted followers – from longstanding superfans to established names from the worlds of film and music such as Javier Bardem, Lars Ulrich and Gene Simmons.”
In addition, the doc is slated to feature exclusive interviews with key band members and the final interview with original vocalist, Paul Di’Anno, who died in October 2024 at 66 from a tear in the sac around his heart. In addition to rare archival footage of the group, the doc will also include all-new animated sequences with Maiden’s fan-favorite ghoulish grin zombie mascot Eddie, who has appeared on all their album covers.
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“We’re proud Universal Pictures Content Group has chosen to share the unique story of Iron Maiden with the world,” said Maiden manager Rod Smallwood in a statement about the film that will be directed by Malcolm Venville (Churchill At War). “We have given them unrestricted access to the band, our fans and musical peers. We trust that they will excite not only music fans but also anyone who loves a story of an underdog beating the odds to become and remain one of Britain’s biggest musical exports since our first record released 45 years ago.”
The movie description continues, “The film offers a unique visual experience that highlights Iron Maiden’s widespread impact and the strong connection between the band and their truly global army of fans. The film also explores the cultural movement Iron Maiden has helped shape and their enduring legacy in both music and fan culture, challenging common perceptions of the wider significance of rock music and heavy metal.”
Iron Maiden formed in East London in 1975 and helped spearhead a resurgent wave of British metal on their way to selling more than 100 million records worldwide thanks to such hard-charging hit singles as “Run to the Hills,” “The Number of the Beast,” “Aces High,” “Flight of Icarus,” “The Trooper” and “Hallowed Be Thy Name.”
“We’re thrilled Iron Maiden have entrusted us to bring their legacy to cinemas around the world,” said Universal Pictures Content group executive vice president Helen Parker. “Working closely with the band and their passionate fans has been an unrivalled experience allowing us to tell their story in a unique way and celebrate their incomparable fearless creativity in their 50th anniversary year.” The film will be produced by Dominic Freeman (Spirits in the Forest – a Depeche Mode Film), with Parker serving as executive producer.
Iron Maiden will launch their 50th anniversary Run For Your Lives tour in Budapest on May 27, with 32 other dates currently scheduled throughout Europe through August 2.