Rock
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From the blues to jazz to rock to folk to country, the guitar is probably the most pivotal instrument of the 20th century, serving as a centerpiece for a variety of genres that changed the course of culture in America and around the world.
In honor of the stringed instrument that has amped up audiences for centuries, we present Billboard’s list of the 100 Greatest Guitars of All Time.
No, that’s not a typo. This is not a list of 100 guitarists – though each item on this list is associated with a particular guitar slinger. And it’s not a list of guitar brands or companies. This is a list of actual guitars, played by great guitarists. It puts the shine on guitars throughout modern history that have been a part of the evolution of popular music. Instead of focusing on guitar playing style, we’re looking at the instrument itself as handled by various luminaries across everything from bluegrass to heavy metal.
What is “the greatest”? Iconic, influential, inventive, famous, game changing? Unusual, oddball, beautiful, even whimsical? Just plain cool? It’s all of that and more. Some of the guitars that follow are standard models with minimal modifications; others are one-of-a-kind pieces that have been endlessly tinkered with. Some are technical and auditory wonders; others have been beaten to hell over the years by overzealous owners. But all are important to the guitar’s history and ongoing evolution.
This was a big undertaking that we didn’t want to do alone. We invited a panel of ace guitarists across a variety of genres, as well as journalists and experts, to peruse a lengthy list of guitars, compiled by Billboard, and vote on them. We invited our voters to submit their own picks. After tallying their responses, we sent it back to the voting panel, solicited additional feedback and incorporated that into a final list of the 100 Greatest Guitars of All Time.
In addition to a few voters who wished to remain anonymous, the voting panel included: Duane Betts, Nick Bowcott of Sweetwater, Carl Broemel of My Morning Jacket, Larry Campbell, Joanna Connor, Michael Doyle of Guitar Center, Alejandro Escovedo, Pete Evick of Bret Michaels Band, Damian Fanelli of Guitar World, Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top, Slim Gambill of Lady A, Kirk Hammett of Metallica, Jim James of My Morning Jacket, Myles Kennedy of Alter Bridge and Slash featuring Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators, J Mascis of Dinosaur Jr, Dave Mason, Scott Metzger, Bob Mould, Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick, Orianthi, Joe Perry of Aerosmith, Joe Satriani, Chris Scapelliti of Guitar Player, Peter Stroud of Sheryl Crow’s band, Matthew Sweet, Mark Tremonti of Creed and Alter Bridge, Seth Walker, Erika Wennerstrom of Heartless Bastards, Jack White, Andy Wood and Oliver Wood.
This week, we’re rolling out the first half of the list (guitars 100-51), and next week, we’ll unveil the full 100 (for now, the image above will serve as a hint).
This list is far from exhaustive. There are so many legendary guitars that even a list of 100 fails to encompass all of them. Regardless, we hope what follows spurs some excitement, debate, discovery and even, perhaps, someone to pick up a guitar and start playing.
100. Johnny Thunders – ca. 1959 Les Paul Junior TV Model
We learned a lot about Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz during his speech at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Wednesday night (August 21). The former high school football coach, Army National Guard veteran and social studies teacher fired up the packed crowd at the United Center with a rousing address about his midwestern values and loving family while accepting the party’s nomination for Vice President alongside current VP and presidential nominee Kamala Harris.
And, in keeping with his reputation as a “dad rock” guy who has raged against the machine for not yet inducting Warren Zevon into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and whose picks at his favorite Minneapolis record store Electric Fetus last year included vinyl classics by Genesis, the Moody Blues and Steve Winwood, he entered and exited the stage to some solid meat-and-potatoes rock.
In fact, a spokesperson for Neil Young confirmed to Billboard on Thursday (August 22) that the Gov. got a personal sign-off from the 78-year-old Rock and Roll Hall of Famer to cap his emotional speech with Young’s blistering 1989 anthem “Rockin’ in the Free World.” The song from Young’s Freedom album took a sledgehammer to then-Republican President George H. W. Bush’s signature phrase “thousands points of light” with lyrics lamenting a lack of urgency about climate change and missing conservative compassion for homeless Americans amid what Young deemed empty promises to “keep hope alive.”
The official stamp of approval from Young is in contrast to his complaint that Walz and Harris’ White House rival, former one-term Republican President Donald Trump, had not sought approval to play the song during his first run for office in 2015, an action that led Young to consider suing Trump. In 2020, Young did sue Trump for copyright infringement for playing “Rockin’” and “Devil’s Sidewalk” at rallies, with Young saying that in “good conscience” he could not allow his music to be used by the divisive former reality TV star.
After Trump lost his second bid for office, Young dismissed the copyright case.
In a post on his Archives site earlier this week, Young noted that he was closely watching the DNC — not on network or cable TV but on C-Span, where he said there are “no smarmy talking heads… No slant” — in a missive that included a reprint of artist Shepard Fairey’s “FORWARD” poster for the Harris campaign.
Walz took the stage to John Mellencamp’s 1985 homage to his midwestern upbringing, “Small Town. At press time a spokesperson for the Indiana-bred rocker had not confirmed that Mellencamp had given his personal approval for the use of the song.
Young is on a long list of artists who have either sued, threatened to sue or complained about Trump using their music during his rallies. That roster recently added the estate of late soul icon Isaac Hayes and Beyoncé’s label, which issued a cease-and-desist order to convicted felon Trump’s campaign this week over his spokesperson’s unauthorized use of her anthem “Freedom” — the official Harris/Walz theme song , personally approved by Queen Bey — in a social media post; that post has since been taken down.
Trump has long used the music of popular artists over their public objections, drawing complaints about the twice-impeached former commander-in-chief’s unauthorized playing of songs at his rallies from artists including the Rolling Stones, Adele, Rihanna and the late Sinead O’Connor, among many others.
Imagine Dragons’ drummer, Daniel Platzman, officially announced on Wednesday (Aug. 21) that he is leaving the band to focus on his film composing career. “After an incredible journey of over a decade, I will be departing the amazing band that is Imagine Dragons,” Platzman shared in a press statement. “I wanted to share my deepest […]
Not sure if you’ve noticed, but “here’s the thing” has become an overused thing. The old expression is suddenly the go-to for anyone from influencers to politicians to news correspondents trying to make a point. “Here’s the thing,” like “at the end of the day” or “wait, whaaat? before it, has become a hackneyed verbal tic. But here’s the thing: “Here’s The Thing” also happens to be the title of a strong contender for Greatest Song of 2024. It’s the rip-snorting third single from Romance, the glorious fourth album from Fontaines D.C., out Friday (Aug. 23), on which the Irish post-punk band breaks with its past in almost every way.
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“I think change was just generally a very enticing thing for us,” says Grian Chatten, Fontaines’ poet-cum-frontman, who in only a half a decade has become one of the most compelling figures in rock. “We wanted to really indulge in something new, and we didn’t want to risk it being only a half-step. And I think the more changes there were around us, the better.”
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It’s early May, and I am sitting on the patio of a hotel in Brooklyn with Chatten — who is sporting a city-appropriate Yankees jersey and wraparound shades — after he suggests we talk outdoors so he can smoke a couple roll-your-owns over the hour. The band is in town to do a one-off underplay gig to jump start the record’s cycle, and to play the television debut of “Starburster,” the LP’s biting, driving first single, on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.
Launching into an animated mid-morning chat, the singer is palpably pumped to be starting up the Fontaines engines once again – maybe more so than in years, as this time the band is riding on a very different vehicle. Yes, Conor Curley and Carlos O’Connell’s alternately chime-y and crunchy guitars are still there; bassist Conor Deegan III and drummer Tom Coll have lost none of their drive; and Chatten is still there with his supple voice, wordplay and can’t-look-away presence.
But everything about Romance feels breathlessly bolder, eclectic and carpe diem, caution to the wind and all that. They’ve changed producers (James Ford, in place of Dan Carey), labels (XL Recordings, rather than longtime home Partisan), and aesthetics, with a series of arresting music videos underscoring the new era.
“There’s an element that feels maybe a little like playing a character,” Chatten concedes. “But with this record and everything around it, we’re drawing a lot from the inspirations we had when we were really young. For me, it was always very theatrical bands like The Cure. It was a very complex and very rich world. Almost Tim Burton-esque. And I think that drawing from that is something that feels genuine, but it also has the fun that comes with playing a role.”
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Shaking things up, no matter the risk, felt like an imperative in 2023 to Fontaines D.C. While the band had made leftward moves over three albums — from the spitfire of their 2019 debut Dogrel through a dreamier A Hero’s Death in 2020 and toward something more internal on 2022’s Skinty Fia — there’s nothing gradual about the creative leap taken on Romance. “We always think that we’re pushing the boat out, or taking some new turn, with each record,” Chatten explains. “And I think probably the reality is that it was a lot less of a turn than we thought. But this time, I feel good about it being a full f–kin’ turn.”
Surely the most significant change on Romance was bringing on James Ford as producer. Post-punk A-lister Dan Carey had become synonymous with Fontaines over the band’s first three LP’s; he helmed Chatten’s debut solo LP, 2023’s warts-and-all thriller Chaos For the Fly; and Chatten admits Carey was disappointed by news of the split. But the band had been suggested Ford as a collaborator several times, and after a studio session intended to record only one song ended up yielding two and a half, the die was cast. “It just worked really well,” Chatten says. “It was just such a fluid and easy process that it just made sense.”
Ford’s production resume includes nearly 50 albums in 20 years by the likes of Foals, Klaxons, Blur, Gorillaz and Depeche Mode. But he is most indelibly associated with Arctic Monkeys, and Ford’s facility with bands “expanding” their sound is evidenced on the Monkeys’ recent LPs. Soon after coming off the road opening for Arctic Monkeys last fall, Fontaines D.C. went into the studio with Ford, and there are places on Romance that are signatures of the producer, including the string-filled drama of centerpiece “In The Modern World.”
As it happens, Monkeys frontman Turner was one of the boldfaced names in attendance when, two nights after my interview with Chatten, Fontaines D.C. played to a packed-out Warsaw Ballroom in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, delivering a set that included a handful of Romance tracks. Watching Chatten command a stage with more confidence than ever – certainly more than in Fontaines’ early days – it reminded me of the way that Turner, too, was initially an onstage introvert and very much grew into (or adopted) a rakish onstage swagger over the years. Chatten doesn’t dispute the comparison.
“In my experience, it can be frustrating to be reading yourself saying the same answers over and over again in interviews in that reserved way,” he offers. “And I feel like I’ve been doing that a lot over the past couple of years where it got to be a habit. I just got bored with what I was saying. So, you know, to allow a little bit of a character in, maybe, to change the way you present yourself, it makes it more interesting for yourself. So I totally relate to him leaning into that. And in terms of the singing thing, I think I just like my voice more now than I used to. I think I was probably quite uncomfortable with it, but I like it more now.”
Fontaines D.C.
Deanie Chen
Chatten uses that voice in more varied ways than ever on Romance – bright and melodic, droll and sardonic, dreamy and reflective, desperate and urgent. It’s all in service of a record that does have a specific thesis, expressed in the last line of the title track: “Maybe romance is a place for me, and you.” The tracks “Desire” and “In The Modern World” first gave Chatten the idea for the album title; a touchstone that inspired the latter song was the 1988 cyberpunk anime classic Akira.
“I think I really wanted to write a song that felt like the romance that blossoms in that film,” he explains. “That dystopian, everything crashing around you, and drifting further and further away apparently from a sense of humanity. But still therein blossoms a relationship, a romance. A romance that is necessary to cling onto something, and not give up hope in a world like that. I really related to that. Especially these days, you know?”
He’s quick to add, though, that it’s a form of denial as well. “I’ve always been interested in the argument, or the perspective, of seeing delusion and romance as one and the same,” he says. “And I think the place of romance that I spoke about, in the title track, it’s that place, it’s that refuge. And I think there’s a denial, maybe, involved. You’re dressing your life up in this romantic way. And I think there’s a line to blur between madness and this denial, which is necessary in order to get on. The world is absolutely f–ked, and it’s difficult to know which way to turn.”
Though Chatten tends not to write too on-the-nose about his own life experiences, they are woven throughout the new LP. The sweeping “In The Modern World,” which was written during a sabbatical to Los Angeles, opens with the line “I feel alive” then alternates calling it “the city that you like” and “the city you despise.” The first word that comes to my mind about the song, and the whole album, is “cinematic,” though I tell Chatten I hate to be reductive. “That’s okay!” he assures me with a laugh. “It is! You can reduce the record!” “I find it interesting,” he adds of the City of Angels. “And that’s as close as I get to saying I really like a place: I find it interesting and it intrigues me and stimulates me creatively. Which L.A. can do, at least in short bursts. I think I wrote that maybe with something like the ghost of Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard, or maybe Lana Del Rey’s voice was ringing around in my head as well. I don’t know, but maybe it’s a song to Lana Del Rey?” He chuckles. “I don’t know.”
In marked contrast to that song’s grandeur is “Horseness Is the Whatness,” a sweet late album gem with a fractured lump-in-the-throat innocence, which asks plaintively, “Will someone / Find out what the word is / That makes the world go round / ‘Cause I thought it was love.” The track’s childlike quality is no accident, Chatten says, explaining that it was written by Fontaines guitarist Carlos O’Connell, an occasional guest lyricist.
“I think that’s the second time someone’s said that to me!” Chatten says when I express affection for the song. “It’s Carlos’ line, and I’m really glad his lyrics are getting that kind of attention, ‘cause I think they’re incredible. And it’s a really vulnerable song in that way, which I think partly comes from him having a child and seeing the world through their eyes.”
Chatten has no kids of his own, but he is nearly six years into a relationship, and says of his girlfriend, who manages bands and sang on Chatten’s solo LP, “We’re good,” though by his own admission he can be “a lot” to deal with. The singer has spoken candidly in the past about serious struggles with anxiety that intensified in 2022 as Fontaines D.C. toured Skinty Fia. That album’s harrowing “Nabokov” remains emotionally challenging to perform live, while “Starburster,” the first single from Romance, was inspired by a devastating panic attack that the singer experienced in London’s St. Pancras Station during a period when such episodes were frequent.
“I was having like three, four a day around that time,” he recalls. “It got really out of hand for a while. And I got a handle on it when I got my ADHD diagnosis. Things gradually became a bit easier. And the upshot, I think, is that I’ve become a better friend and a better partner to my missus, and a better son to my folks. And if I have 10 minutes now between trains, I’ll give someone a ring and ask them how they are. Because – I’ve always wanted to know, but I’ve always had my head up my ass, do you know what I mean? So that’s the real benefit for me. Now being in a better place, I get to extend my concern to other people.”
Fontaines D.C.
Deanie Chen
Still, being in a long-term relationship seems to have surprised even him. Two tracks on Romance, “Bug” and “Death Kink,” seem to refer to what a challenging partner he can be. The latter tune opens with “When you came into my life I was lost / And you took that shine to me at what a cost.” “I can be a bit of a freight train, in a way that I can be unchangeable,” he admits. “I’m very rigid in what I like and what I don’t like. And I think that song ‘Bug’ is somebody who doesn’t yield, or is just leaving a trail of destruction, and that is how I feel sometimes. But we’ve been together five and a half years, and we’re incredible happy. We’re in a really good place. But I am inclined to be independent, just generally speaking, but it just so happens that I fell in love. So it’s difficult for me to divert from the path.”
Chatten is remarkably open-hearted throughout our chat. He’s a touch acerbic and is not above some good-natured teasing of a journalist he’s just met. But for the most part, he’s warm, thoughtful and seemingly principled. “I’m a sensitive little soul,” he says by way of explaining why he can’t marinate in the awful news that the world dishes out daily. In other words, to me at least, he’s quintessentially Irish, giving something not unlike the vibes I got when I twice talked to the late great Sinéad O’Connor. We lost O’Connor in July 2023, just months before the passing of another Irish legend, Shane MacGowan. Both artists were fierce, suffer-no-fools forces of nature who lived their lives at 11, and MacGowan was one of Chatten’s longtime heroes.
“We were in the middle of recording the album when Shane died,” he recalls. “And I had to f–king take a break. I was really, deeply affected by it. Partly because he enhanced my relationship with my family! You know, he connected me to my Irishness maybe in a way that I wouldn’t have been able to do without him.” As for Sinéad, “I was a big fan,” he says. “I feel like she gave an awful lot more than what was required of her, in her life. And I really respect and admire that. It means a lot. My mom is a massive Sinéad O’Connor fan, and many is the time that she had a few glasses of wine, and she would try and sing one of her tunes. In a quiet room of largely polite people!”
Romance feels destined to propel Fontaines D.C. to yet another level of attention and acclaim: the band’s fall North American tour will play mostly 1500-3000 capacity rooms, followed by European dates that includes arenas. More significantly, it’s an explosion of lush, bold new colors. Hopefully the Fontaines day ones, rowdy as some may be, will be open to the expansion. If some still long for the ragged punk of early favorites like “Liberty Belle” or “Boys In the Better Land,” those songs are out there. “I mean, if somebody wants to listen to ‘Boys In the Better Land’ for the rest of their life,” Chatten says with a shrug. “Then I envy their ability to find something that interests them for so long!”
Whatever comes next, he doesn’t plan on making the same music at 50 that he made when he was half that age. “I wouldn’t be comfortable doing it, and I probably wouldn’t be that interested in listening to it,” he flatly states. “I accessed that part of myself very thoroughly around the time that we wrote it, so I don’t know if I will be hungry to access that kind of thing, in the same way, ever again. But who knows? I am skeptical about the idea of going into grandiosity and wider themes and deeper into yourself, and then snapping back into social commentary that’s like a snappy 4-4 punk beat. I’m not sure it’s an artist’s right to do that after going so deep. So I think, stay basic for as long as you can, and then maybe get more complicated.”
Richy Mitch & The Coal Miners earn their first career entry on the Billboard Hot 100 dated Aug. 24 thanks to the group’s seven-year-old viral hit, the aptly named “Evergreen.”
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Released in May 2017 on the group’s debut studio album RMCM, the track launches at No. 83 on the Hot 100 almost entirely from its streaming sum: 5.7 million official U.S. streams (up 22%) Aug. 9-15, according to Luminate. The song was boosted by a new remix, featuring Caamp, released Aug. 9. (Caamp is not credited on the Hot 100 as the remix did not account for the bulk of the song’s consumption in the tracking week.)
The single also re-enters the Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart at No. 14 after reaching No. 11 in March.
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Richy Mitch & The Coal Miners and Caamp performed the new remix together for the first time at the FairWell Festival in central Oregon on July 20. “This is 7 years in the making and we’re fortunate enough to have a band that we’ve looked up to from the beginning on it,” the group shared on Instagram. “Excited for you all to finally hear it and excited that this song will finally be out in the world.”
“Evergreen” has been growing in popularity since its original release thanks in large part to TikTok, where its official audio has soundtracked over 300,000 clips to date. The song is typically used in inspiring and wholesome videos using the #hopecore hashtag.
“Evergreen” also became the band’s first overall chart entry in January, when it arrived on Billboard’s Hot Rock Songs and Hot Rock & Alternative Songs charts.
At just 1 minute and 26 seconds long and encompassing only two verses, “Evergreen” is also one of the shortest Hot 100-charting songs in history. In fact, it’s shorter than the shortest No. 1 song (in terms of run time): Maurice Williams & the Zodiacs’ 1960 leader “Stay” (1:38). The shortest song ever on the Hot 100 ever is Kid Cudi’s 37-second-long “Beautiful Trip” in 2020, followed by Piko-Taro’s 45-second “PPAP (Pen-Pineapple-Apple-Pen)” in 2016. (The new remix of “Evergreen” with Caamp clocks in at 2:57.)
Richy Mitch & The Coal Miners — from Colorado Springs, Colo. — is comprised of lead singer Mitch Cutts, Jakob Ervin, Nicolas Haughn and Ryan Lavallee. The band released RMCM the same day that its members graduated high school. Since then, the act has released two additional albums: Solstice in 2018 and Subliming in 2019.
The band’s upcoming October Moon Tour kicks off in October and runs through November.
Foreigner waxes nostalgic and reflective on its first new song in eight years, a track from the band’s vaults.
Timed to the group’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction on Oct. 19, “Turning Back the Time” appears on a new 18-song, best-of compilation of the same name that releases Oct. 4 via Rhino.
“There are a number of songs that Lou Gramm and I wrote together that have never seen the light of day,” Foreigner founder Mick Jones tells Billboard. “‘Turning Back the Time’ was co-written with Marti Frederiksen. Marti and I recently revisited and reworked the song. Because of the time that had passed we were able to go back to it with a fresh perspective. The sentiment of the song spoke to us now more than ever and with the upcoming Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction we thought it an ideal time to let the world hear it.”
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The upbeat and melodic track weighs in at just under three minutes, with lyrics about “the times I was growing up and the road that brought me here,” and how seeing the Beatles on TV “changed everything deep inside of me.” It also references “the double vision day,” a nod to Foreigner’s second album. Particularly poignant in light of Jones’ battle with Parkinson’s disease, which has kept him off stage for the last few years, the chorus intones, “There’s something missing my life, so I’m turning back the time.”
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The track was first demoed back in 1996, shortly after Jones and Frederiksen collaborated on songs for the 1998 movie Strange Fruit. The two also began writing material for Foreigner, with Gramm joining the process for some of those, including “Turning Back the Time.” Jones and Frederiksen co-produced the recording earlier this year with both playing guitar, Jones adding keyboards, Frederiksen on bass and his son Evan on drums. Gramm’s vocals were taken from the original demo; he left the band for a second and final time in 2003.
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The album’s other 17 tracks draw from Foreigner’s nine studio albums, including “When It Comes to Love” with current frontman Kelly Hansen.
There’s no word on any future plans for additional unfinished Foreigner material that’s in the vaults. Jones told Billboard in May that, “There are a number of songs that are demos I wrote with Lou. A couple of them are quite promising. Some written with Marti are lying around. I’ve been going through cassette tapes of demos; some I think don’t deserve to see the light of day.” Jones adds that he’s also finished mixing and mastering a solo album, Shelter From the Storm, that he hopes to release “at some point soon.”
Gramm, meanwhile, has often spoken about “a whole album’s worth of songs” from the early 2000s that he and Jones wrote and only recorded in rough form. “They’re great songs…some of our very best songs,” Gramm told Billboard earlier this year. “There were about eight or nine of them. We didn’t have a record company then, so we were waiting to see what happened. Then Mick and I had a huge falling out, and I left the band…. So now Mick’s got the copy and I don’t have one and I don’t know if he’s ever gonna do anything with them. I kind of doubt it, but I would like to at least listen to those roughs that we did. Those were great ideas.”
In the meantime, Jones, Gramm and their former bandmates are preparing for the Rock Hall induction, one of the most highly anticipated since Foreigner was long considered one of the shrine’s greatest snubs. Producer Mark Ronson, Jones’ son-in-law, put together a video campaign with Rock Hall members such as Paul McCartney, Slash, Dave Grohl, Slash and Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers expressing disbelief that the group wasn’t in yet.
“Every year was the same thing, so eventually I didn’t really worry about it,” Jones told Billboard earlier this year. “I certainly haven’t been overly consumed by it…. I’ve had a great career and this is like the whipped cream and cherry on top.”
The Rock Hall induction ceremony will stream live from Cleveland via Disney+, with a truncated special slated for ABC later in the year.
The full track list for Turning Back the Time:
“Feels Like The First Time”
“Cold As Ice”
“Long, Long Way From Home”
“Hot Blooded”
“Double Vision”
“Dirty White Boy”
“Head Games”
“Urgent”
“Waiting For A Girl Like You”
“Juke Box Hero”
“Girl On The Moon”
“I Want To Know What Love Is”
“That Was Yesterday”
“Say You Will”
“Can’t Slow Down”
“When It Comes To Love”
“The Flame Still Burns”
“Turning Back The Time”
X – a punk band that delivers rockabilly riffs at breakneck speeds while dual lead vocalists, John Doe and Exene Cervenka, shout poetry inspired by the dirty realism of Charles Bukowski — was one of the formative bands of the Los Angeles punk scene. On their essential first two albums, 1980’s Los Angeles and 1981’s Wild Gift, Cervenka and Doe (then married) sounded like they were dashing out diary entries from the end of the world, barely making it from one day to the next. While the band’s ninth album — the vital, reflective Smoke & Fiction — feels less fatalistic, Cervenka and Doe are cognizant that the end is nearing for X when they hop on a Zoom call with Billboard in the midst of their last-ever tour.
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“I hope people will come see us play, because — not to be weird — we may never play your town again. But that’s true every night, right?” says Cervenka, calling in from her house in SoCal, wearing a puppy t-shirt but still looking unmistakably punk. “Just a reminder: Life is short, but it’s up to people to listen to the record or come see us if they want. Or not. We’re really happy with this record. And that’s its own reward, no matter what happens.”
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Critics and fans seem to agree with her. Responses to Smoke & Fiction have been overwhelmingly positive; the album even hit the top 10 of Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart, marking their best showing ever on that tally.
“We did three days at Sunset Sound, which is a great studio,” says Doe, speaking in front of a mishmash of drawings, paintings, photos and books from his house in Austin. “Like a lot of what I think are good rock n’ roll records, it was made in less than a month — three weeks, maybe.”
Below, the band takes Billboard through their decision to make Smoke & Fiction their final album/tour, what their creative process is like these days (Cervenka periodically jots down words in a notebook during our conversation) and what they think about the changing musical landscape of L.A.
2020’s Alphabetland was the first X album in decades, but you couldn’t tour behind it because of the pandemic. Is that part of what made you want to do another one?
Cervenka: For me, it was. Plus, we could — we just had the option, so we did it.
Doe: I have a little different story. I remember maybe November of 2022, I heard from somebody, maybe our manager, “You know, we’re making a record.” And I said, “Huh. I figured I would be in on that.” My head was twisting back and forth like a like a cockatoo or something. Anyway, I said, “Cool, let’s do it,” and Exene and I got to work. The real luxury is that we played four or five of the songs all year in 2023, so going into the studio in January this year was quick. We got it done.
So some of these songs you road-tested, but for the other ones, how long did it take you to write them?
Cervenka: Well, there isn’t like a starting and an ending point. Some of the lyrics of the songs I wrote a really long time ago, like 15 years ago or longer, and some of them I wrote in the studio. You just constantly write and constantly come up with musical ideas and keep touring and coming up with arrangement ideas on the fly. Then you practice.
Doe: As Exene said, the first single and video, “Big Black X,” that was written in the studio, which is uncharacteristic for us. It was uncharacteristic to write it in the studio, because we don’t like to take a stack of money and set it on fire. Some people love that, but I don’t. Some of the situations that prompted the stories [on the album] are from 30-40 years ago.
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I did want to ask about “Big Black X,” because there are some interesting lyrics in there – you mention hanging out at Errol Flynn’s rundown mansion back in the day. Was there a particular memory or experience that made you want to include that in a song?
Cervenka: Well, it’s a place in the Hollywood Hills that people used to go and hang out and drink and party and stuff. It was fenced off [by a] chain link fence, you had to climb up this hillside to get to it. It was just a place to sit and drink. There wasn’t anything about it. It was ruins, you know? It was almost like a small town thing. Like, “let’s go to the haunted house.” You make up these myths about places when you’re young. It was just something to do. Maybe there wasn’t a show that night, or maybe it was after a show. We just had to find each other — because nobody had phones or anything — so you just had to find out where people were and just go and see who was there.
Doe: The song started as a as a prose piece that Exene wrote a couple of pages of, and we didn’t want to repeat ourselves by having a spoken word piece at the end of the record, like we did on Alphabetland with “All the Time in the World.” I just really loved it and thought it would make a great song. And at that point it seemed clear that this could be our last record, just because it was reflective, a lot of the lyrics. So we started putting it into a lyrical form, and [at first] we had different music that was kind of epic stadium [rock]. And I hate – well, I don’t hate it — I don’t do stadium rock very well. The lyrics were sort of strident, like, “We knew the future and also the gutter.” It’s like, we didn’t know the future. We knew the gutter. So we switched that around. It turned out that we had an inkling; the future caught up to what we might have envisioned, as far as punk rock coming to the masses, or punk rock being still being an underground, but there’s a lot of pretty popular bands now that are definitely influenced by punk rock.
Do you think there’s still an L.A. punk scene? Or do you think it’s the city has just changed too much to foster a creative music culture?
Cervenka: Yeah, the L.A. punk scene is the next neighborhood over from the hippie scene and the Beatnik scene and the jazz scene. They don’t exist. None of that exists. It exists for a little while. Then it goes away. In Venice [Calif.], there was a really incredible writing scene. The legacy of that is still there, but those people that were there writing in the ‘50s and early ‘60s and stuff, they’re gone. What is there is that whenever people have ideas and create things, it lives forever, and people find that. They find the essence of it and they say, “Let’s create our own thing.” I would hate it if people were just haunting the same places over and over. I would love it if L.A. was still the way it was, because it was really amazing, but I think people have to create their own version of whatever it was we created and be unique and original and come up with their own idea. Because I wouldn’t want to be young and then going, “Let’s recreate the punk scene from the ’70.”
Doe: I’m sure there’s a bunch of punk rock bands that live and play in L.A.
Cervenka: Oh, for sure, but that’s not the same thing.
Doe: It’s just a different version. L.A.’s got enough people that it’s always going to have a number of really vital rock n’ roll-based music scenes.
Certainly cities like L.A. and New York have gotten much more expensive.
Cervenka: The cities are not what they used to be. Let’s just put it that way.
Has technology changed how you write songs or make records?
Cervenka: That’s how I make records, right here [holds up her notebook and several pens]. I do not use any technology to make a record, except I might sing a song in the phone to John. We do have to email each other.
Doe: I send voice memos to the band of bass and me singing. They listen to it probably once or twice, and then we get to the rehearsal studio and figure it out. I don’t know how much good that does. It changes a lot. But bass is a terrific tool for writing songs because it leaves a lot of space for people.
When you’re working on these songs, do you hem and haw over them, second guessing yourself?
Doe: Yeah, your brain is not your friend, especially in recording. You just have to be intuitive and feel it from your heart and your chest and know somehow what’s right. But that’s hard.
How do you decide who sings what vocal parts?
Doe: I think it’s determined by the lyrics, whoever wrote the majority of the lyrics, and then you just trial-and-error work it out.
Cervenka: Yeah, I think that the songs I sing are the ones that wrote the majority of the lyrics, and the ones that John sings are the ones he wrote the lyrics. But that’s not always the case.
Doe: I would say Exene wrote most of the lyrics for “Sweet Til the Bitter End,” “Smoke and Fiction” and “Winding Up the Time,” but it was clear that there was room for call and answer, so we did that.
Cervenka: I think it also depends on what the key the song is in. There’s certain songs that I’m not going to sing because it’s a lower note.
John: Fun fact: “Flip Side” was written in a different key, but I wanted Exene to be the lead, and I would sing harmony. I’d sing around her, so we moved the key up. And same thing with “The Struggle Is Surreal.”
I know X hasn’t been active all these years, but your debut came out 44 years ago and you started playing a few years before that. Does it feel like that long to you – almost a half century?
Cervenka: I don’t know what that feels like. I think that I just try to stay in the moment. I don’t know. I don’t know anything about time. I guess it does. I guess it doesn’t. I don’t know.
Doe: Since it’s the only thing that I’ve done for almost 50 years, I would say it feels exactly like that. But there’s all this other life that goes around around that. We played a show outside in Chicago, and it was a total sweat fest. It was hot and humid, and toward the end of the show, I said, “I don’t know if I feel like I’m 25 or 85” because I kind of felt like both, just jumping around and playing this punk rock show. But I mean, even when I was 25, if you play hard and you really give it your all — which we do — you’re exhausted.
One thing we hear a lot from artists is how difficult the touring market is these days. As you do this tour, have you found that to be the case?
Cervenka: No, that’s not true for us as much. But yes, the price of gas and the price of hotels and the price of food and the amount of people able to go to shows has changed markedly in the last couple years. So it is a little harder. The festivals do compete a lot with the club stuff, but this is our last club tour where we’re going from city to city, club to club, van ride to van ride. But people are turning out for the shows and we don’t have that problem right now. I don’t know. I mean, I don’t know how people can afford to go out at all, you know? But somehow, they do.
Doe: We’re incredibly fortunate because we have this history. We have a very loyal fan base. It’s a sweet spot for us: people either say, “You changed my life” or “you saved my life” or “I don’t know who you are.” So the people that know us and have seen us, they know that we put on a good show, and they’re very dedicated.
I saw you back in the late ‘00s and it absolutely knocked me out. I still think about it. Very excited to check out your New York show.
Doe: We’re playing the fancy place: [Manhattan’s] Town Hall. Which is funny, because I used to get pretty freaked out about playing sit-down venues. And now, since we’ve done it enough, it’s not so bad. I mean, I like to sit down. I don’t necessarily like standing for an entire show.
It is a lot. But it can be awkward. I saw a show at Radio City – which is a fancy, sit-down venue – that Jack White played, and he kind of yelled at the audience for not standing. But it can be hard to stand when the seats are so close together.
Doe: That’s just f–king stupid. [laughs] You don’t berate the audience. If you’re playing a quiet song, you don’t yell at the audience to shut up — either they’re interested enough to listen to what you’re doing, or they’re motivated enough to stand up and do it. Oh well. We all make mistakes.
It’s true, we all make mistakes. And his new record is amazing. So this is billed as your final album and tour. Of course, we’ve heard that from a lot of bands who then return to do more tours. Is there a chance of that?
Cervenka: Well, define tour. Are we going to travel around America, endlessly, getting in and out of a van, in and out of the motel, back and forth to a club at this age? Up and down the stairs to the dressing room and lug our equipment and our suitcases around? No, no, we’re not going to keep doing that. We’re going to do it to the end of the year, and then we’ll reassess. We have festival dreams for next year and Little Stevie’s garage rock cruise in May. I would be happy if we could do a couple of festivals and that, but we’ll see what happens.
Doe: And we might just do a residency. We’ll find like a Bowery Ballroom and we’ll have 20 dates instead of 80.
Cervenka: Maybe. We don’t know.
So it’s not the end of the band, but you’re done with the schlepping around and staying in sh-tty hotels.
Cervenka: Hope so.
What is your day-to-day like? When you’re not music-making, what are you doing with your time?
Cervenka: Well, I have a very old dog that I adopted from a friend who could no longer care for her, and she’s blind, and she needs a lot of care. So I take care of her. I do housework, yard work, laundry, cooking, you know, just all the things normal people do all day. Just the crap of life. I don’t have a very exciting life. I do make art, and I do have friends, but I don’t really go out much. And I like having a quiet life. I live alone. I like that. And I’m pretty reflective. I have some little creative projects. But basically, since I don’t have to do anything when I have time off, I try not to, because I’m so busy when we’re working. I’m not one of those people that goes crazy unless they have a project in front of me. I’m not on the phone all the time trying to book the next thing that I want to do. I just hang out at home.
Doe: I try to be creative. I agree that it is project-driven, but I do have a monthly poetry workshop that I get on a Zoom call with six or seven people that I know. And pretty much every day, I go visit my horse and ride and take care of her. My wife and I go out on occasion. We saw a great movie about the making of Fitzcarraldo.
Was that Burden of Dreams? I love that one.
Doe: Yes, Werner Herzog never disappoints when he starts talking about [adopts German accent] “In nature, I just see chaos and murder.” He’s so awesome. And Les Blank, his abilities as a documentarian are unmatched.
I’ll go to a record store. I try to stay current with some of the some new records. I like the new Iron & Wine record. It’s really good. There’s a couple songs that he obviously listened to Nick Drake a lot, but that’s cool, because he’s so talented. Sunny War’s new record I like a lot. And Skating Polly is a band that Exene brought to our attention. Actually, I just watched a couple videos of a band from Baltimore called Angel Du$t.They’re pretty f–king insane. Very Henry Rollins, Black Flag influenced. There was this one song where he said, “All right, all the women have to come up and sing a verse.” And all these young girls were just getting up and diving off stage. In this three-minute, two-minute song, there were probably 10 different people. It was great.
Maybe you should do that on your tour.
Doe: No.
Cervenka: I don’t like to divide people by their imaginary genders.
There probably aren’t too many celebrities left on Snoop Dogg’s bucket list, but he checked a major one off earlier this year when he met Paul McCartney for the first time.
Fresh off performing at the Olympics’ Closing Ceremony, Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre recently sat down with Complex, and The Doggfather reflected on having the chance to link up with The Beatles legend, where the respect was mutual.
“I did a little concert for somebody in Hollywood. Paul McCartney was there. I never met him before, but I’m a f–king fan of The Beatles,” he began. “I know Jimmy [Iovine] know him, I know Dre know him. I’m in the back smoking and they’re like, ‘Sir Paul would like to meet you.’ I’m like, ‘Oh for real? Hold on.’
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Snoop continued, noting he didn’t know McCartney is also a cannabis connoisseur. “I put the blunt out, cuz walk in the room like, ‘Don’t put that down!’ He give me a hug and he meet me and I’m like, ‘F–k, Paul McCartney know who the f–k Snoop Dogg is!’” recalled the rapper. “This is Paul McCartney, he knows who I am. That’s the experience I love is when the people you respect, respect you.”
“F–k yeah,” he exclaimed when asked about potentially working with Paul. “In a heartbeat, ‘Ebony & Ivory,’ ‘The Girl Is Mine.’ What do you want to do? Like a motherf—-r?”
A photo of Snoop and Paul emerged in April from the Jimmy Buffett Tribute concert, which appears to be the event that the West Coast icon is referencing.
After once passing on the opportunity to collaborate with Stevie Wonder, Dr. Dre is open to locking in with the music icon. “You know what? It’s crazy because I bumped into Stevie Wonder a couple times,” Dre said. “He called me. He pulled up on me in the restaurant, ‘I heard you been talking about me?!’ … He’s one of my heroes and I would absolutely go in there with him … I always taught maybe you shouldn’t meet your heroes.”
While Dre hasn’t been in the studio with Stevie, Snoop reminded him he did co-produce a record for Busta Rhymes titled “Through the Storm,” which featured vocals from Wonder on 2006’s The Big Bang. “[It’s] probably gonna happen. I have to have that experience,” Dre concluded of working with Wonder down the line.
Snoop Dogg chimed in, recalling a hilarious time when he was in the studio with Wonder and Pharrell, and he got Skateboard P so high that he just left him in the studio with Stevie. “I’m like, ‘What you want me to do?’ I ain’t no producer,” Snoop said.
Snoop and Dr. Dre are gearing up to deliver their first full-length collaborative project since 1993’s Doggystyle with Missionary, which they’re promising to release before Santa Claus comes down chimneys across the globe.
Watch the full interview below.
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Just one week before the planned kick-off of a headlining U.S. tour with Fear Factory, Twizted and Black Satellite, hard rockers Coal Chamber were forced to postpone the outing following singer Dez Fafara’s emergency hospitalization over the weekend.
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The 58-year-old vocalist apologized to fans in a lengthy statement about having to press pause on the Fiend of the Fans tour — scheduled to launch on Friday (August 23) in Las Vegas and run through a Sept. 29 show in Denver — but said a recent unspecified health crisis forced his hand.
“With a heavy heart, let me tell you a story about life taking a turn, I’m writing to you from my bed. I’ve been running 6 miles daily, I’ve been rehearsing two hours daily in my home studio and excited to hit the road, I’m excited to get on a bus with my brothers and sister and my crew. I’ d never felt better and as you all know, I fought back hard after long haul COVID tried to kill me,” Fafara wrote in the post.
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“Saturday morning I woke up and I was coming up my stairs. I saw flashes in my eyes. I passed out and my wife revived me. My vitals were through the roof, and I was sheet white and vomiting, and the whole world was spinning,” he continued. “[My wife] Anahstasia called 911. I ended up in the back of an ambulance and did nine hours in the ER testing all my vitals including taking X-rays of my heart and lungs. My doctor has advised me to get a cat scan, and until further testing, I am on bedrest and must postpone the Tour. Our agent sprung into action to rebook this tour for March 2025, and until we can figure out what the f–k medically is happening.”
Fafara said the tour is now scheduled to hit the road in March 2025 under the same name. “This tour postponement is surreal, I was looking forward to playing with my band and connecting with fans, friends and family on the road,” Fafara wrote. “I want to take a moment to thank everybody for their outpouring of love and outpouring of calls and texts checking on me. It seems like the word spread and the whole industry has been ringing my phone since Sunday; musicians, agents and managers and I really really appreciate it.”
As of now, the re-routed outing will begin with a March 5 show at the Summit in Denver and run through an April 18 gig at the Myth Live in Maplewood, MN.
Fafara ended his note with an uplifting message about resilience and an promise to keep fans in the loop on developments. “Kiss your loved ones, no one is promised tomorrow. I’ll fight my way back to be with you all onstage you can be sure of that as well I’ll keep you all updated on my socials as to what’s going on,” the singer said. “Apologies if this news causes you to rearrange your schedules to attend the concert with us and I want to say thank you in advance. We are all truly in the dark and I’m looking forward to finding out what’s going on. HAIL.”
See Fafara’s post and the rescheduled tour dates below.
Are you ready for “One More Time”… one more time? Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker sent fans’ heart racing over the weekend when he teased new music from the punk-pop trio in a post on X in which he promised that fresh tracks are almost ready to go. After tweeting “Who’s ready for One More Time […]