Rock
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Jack Black knows what you need. So, after giving a little tease of his band Tenacious D’s rocked-up cover of Britney Spears signature 1998 Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 smash “…Baby One More Time” last week, the singer/actor dropped the full thing on Friday (March 8). In addition, Black and TD bandmate Kyle Gass got […]
Woah, we’re halfway there! Bon Jovi is the subject of an upcoming deep-dive four-part docuseries that drops next month on Hulu. Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story chronicles the band’s epic, four-decade career, a journey that began in Jersey Shore Clubs and reached rock music’s zenith.
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In a two-and-a-half minute trailer that dropped on Thursday (March 7), singer Jon Bon Jovi excitedly says “I’ve got a story to tell” over the strains of the band’s iconic hit “You Give Love a Bad Name,” as estranged guitarist Richie Sambora jokes, “I’m excited… are we telling the truth, are we gonna lie? What are we gonna do?”
Bon Jovi reveals that making it as a rock band was the only path forward for him. “There was no plan B in my life, ever,” he says over images from his early days grinding it out in bars. “Bon Jovi was all or nothing.”
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There is, of course, plenty of footage of the band’s early shaggy-haired period, with elder Garden State statesman Bruce Springsteen remembering the first time he saw that “young kid” from his backyard “makin’ some noise.” The group’s members recall the rocket ride to fame they embarked on, which got super-charged with their third studio album, 1986’s Slippery When Wet. That album marked the beginning of Jon Bon Jovi and Co. dominating sales charts around the globe, unleashing a stream of hits, including the Billboard Hot 100 leaders “You Give Love a Bad Name” and “Livin’ on a Prayer.”
The singer recalls the day they wrote “Prayer,” saying the group didn’t “think much of the song,” which Sambora boasts is still their best effort to date. “Jon’s choruses demand to be sung by 20,000 people in an arena,” Springsteen says.
Slippery When Wet was the first of the band’s six leaders on the Billboard 200, an album that ignited a global fanbase and ensured the New Jersey favorites would, indeed, play arenas and stadiums for as long as they remained active.
It hasn’t all been a bed of roses. The ride has been stacked with triumphs and setbacks, good times and bad, and “public moments of friction,” all of which are captured in the series. The trailer hints at the wages of success, with Bon Jovi saying the global fame and wild antics “almost killed us,” and Sambora adding that he didn’t regret leaving in 2013, but lamenting “how I did it.”
All episodes will arrive for streaming April 26, retelling the Bon Jovi story with personal videos, unreleased early demos, original lyrics, and never-before-seen photos, according to Hulu.
The series joins the band in February 2022, an uncertain moment in their odyssey, four years after their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and a decade after guitarist/co-songwriter Sambora’s departure at a time when Bon Jovi was battling a vocal injury which required major reconstructive surgery.
In addition to Springsteen and the other members of the band, longtime manager Doc McGee appears in the series.
Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story is directed and executive produced by Gotham Chopra (“Kobe Bryant’s Muse,” “Man in the Arena,” “Tom vs. Time”). Executive producers are Giselle Parets and Ameeth Sankaran for ROS, and the series is produced and edited by Alex Trudeau Viriato.
Watch the trailer below.
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When Katie Crutchfield, the 35-year-old singer-songwriter better known as Waxahatchee, released her country-tinged fifth album, Saint Cloud, in March 2020, its intimacy connected with listeners in early-pandemic lockdown and it topped Billboard’s Heatseekers Albums chart. “I didn’t expect for Saint Cloud to mean as much to people as it did,” she says. “That was obviously a beautiful thing; that’s still, to this day, the thing I’m the proudest of.”
But for her follow-up (and ANTI- debut), Tigers Blood, out March 22, Crutchfield kept a healthy distance from the acclaim of Saint Cloud. “Internalizing people’s praise is just as dangerous, if not more dangerous, than internalizing criticism,” she says from her Kansas City, Mo., home. “I really try and shut all of it out.”
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Tigers Blood carries on in Saint Cloud’s alt-country vein, and like that record, it was made in just two weeks at Texas studio Sonic Ranch with producer Brad Cook (Bon Iver, Snail Mail). But the album has a character all its own, thanks in part to Crutchfield’s new backing band: Cook’s multi-instrumentalist brother Phil, drummer Spencer Tweedy and ascendant rocker Jake “MJ” Lenderman, whose vocal harmonies and guitar leads course through the songs. “With Brad, my records are like a great slice of homemade bread with a fresh slice of tomato, a little olive oil, salt and pepper,” Crutchfield says. “The ingredients are so simple. Why overthink it?”
Allison Crutchfield, your sister and longtime musical collaborator, is an A&R executive at your new home, ANTI- Records. What was that signing experience like?
It’s a crazy situation, right? And it feels so correct. She has always been my most trusted confidant. When she started working A&R at Anti-, she really stepped into that role so naturally, and like has such a unique sort of flair, and like take on being an A&R person. When my [Merge] contract was up, I knew I wanted to make a change. I considered my options, but I’m not going to have that type of connection with anybody [else]. And I already just loved ANTI-, their roster and their ethos and approach.
What has Anti- been like as a label partner as you’ve been getting this album off the ground?
They’ve been so perfect. It’s crazy how well it suits me. The team is just so enthusiastic and hardworking and pure of heart. The president of Anti-, Andy Kaulkin, is such a visionary and such a unique person in the music business – like, a true head. He really cares about music and he just wants me to be an artist; he doesn’t want me to be anything I’m not. There’s a lot of mutual trust there.
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Saint Cloud was a creative risk for you in how strongly you embraced country sounds for it. How did you decide to continue in that stylistic direction with Tigers Blood rather than making another hard pivot?
With Saint Cloud, there was no pressure; we were doing something totally new and just going for it. With Tigers Blood, early on […] there was some pressure that Brad Cook and myself were feeling. There is such a weird allure to reinventing yourself – like, that is sort of looming when you’re thinking about what to do next, you’re like, “OK, what pivot am I going to take?” We ultimately landed on the confident choice [being] to double down on what we did before and change a couple of little, small elements and just trust that it’s going to feel new.
Brad Cook is a longtime collaborator who you worked with on Saint Cloud as well as 2018’s Great Thunder EP and your collaborative 2022 album as Plains with Jess Williamson. How has that relationship evolved?
He’s one of my very, very, very best friends now. Finding exactly the type of collaborator that he is has been a lifelong goal of mine, something that I’ve been subconsciously searching for. Since I’ve been working with Brad, I’ve learned a certain amount of self-awareness about exactly what it is I bring to the table. I bring the songs, I bring the voice, I bring a certain amount of vision, of aesthetically how I want this to be. Brad brings a lot of the other stuff — he is a person who knows how to execute a vision. There is this complementary dynamic to our whole thing. We’ve really built this shared world and this shared taste. It just keeps getting easier and better the longer that we make records together.
Jake “MJ” Lenderman has also had a successful few years as a solo artist and as part of the band Wednesday. What did he bring to these sessions?
Brad and I, when we talk about music, a lot of the time we use food metaphors. And he was like, “Jake is a really potent spice — you’re going to taste it.” I really liked that. It’s kind of fun to throw that spice in the mix — that mixes things up for us, too. He just has amazing taste and this great, exciting, youthful energy that we really fed off.
He came on the Plains tour [in 2022] and opened. I came up in this small DIY scene and I had always approached my music career as like, the main thing is artistic integrity and creative integrity – it’s all about the work and it’s about being close with my people and just like having fun with it. And then having this big year with Saint Cloud, this big year with Plains, not that I like got so far away from that, but I got pulled away from it a little bit. I didn’t even totally see that. So when I was on that [Plains] tour, before we made Tigers Blood, with him and his band and seeing how alive their set was every night and how they built this sweet community and they’re in such good spirits and having so much fun with it – and there’s all this buzz around him and his band, but they really don’t see it or care about it. That really realigned me with my own values. I just really appreciated it. My record wouldn’t have landed the same or been the same had I not had that experience.
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Tigers Blood is the second consecutive Waxahatchee album recorded at Texas’ Sonic Ranch. How did the studio impact your headspace while working on the album?
You feel like called home or something – that’s how I feel at Sonic Ranch. It has worked so well for me to be that removed from my own life. It’s just so beautiful and so expansive and the environment is really conducive to being focused on what you’re doing. It’s like summer camp or something, too, because it’s like a compound; Sublime was working on something right next to us. There is this sense of community but there’s also privacy. I wish I had more excuses to go there. I’m jealous of someone like Brad who gets to go there a lot.
Tell me about your reverence for country music and how that has increasingly bled into your own.
It’s foundational to my songwriting. I grew up on Tammy Wynette and Loretta Lynn and George Jones and all these great country duets and classic country music. And I grew up in the ’90s, when pop country was so huge. All of those things are imprinted on my songwriting DNA. For all the early years, I really rejected that — and so I have been on a journey to reconnect with that. The big artist that helped me bridge that gap is Lucinda [Williams], who is still, to this day, my very favorite songwriter. I’m on a journey with it. It works its way in, always.
How excited are you to tour this record? Is MJ going to join?
I’m really excited to go on tour. MJ is not going to be on the tour. He will pop up here and there. He’s going to have a very busy year himself. He’s gonna do his thing, but of course, he knows there’s an open invitation. And we have a couple of little things planned, so I’m really excited about that. My band this year is really exciting: Spencer’s gonna join me on the road, and the person that’s going to fill the Jake role is Clay Frankel from the band Twin Peaks.
What was the most fun moment of the Tigers Blood sessions?
It was like so magical. We just really bonded. We all lived in this little house on this other side of the property of Sonic Ranch. We were cooking meals for each other and watching basketball and jamming and staying up late and talking and just having the best time. I miss it a lot.
This story originally appeared in the March 9, 2024, issue of Billboard.
Wolfgang Van Halen‘s career has been full of unlikely opportunities. After all, he started with playing bass alongside his father and uncle in Van Halen when he was just 16 years old. And his own band, Mammoth WVH, has become a stadium habituate opening for the likes of Metallica and Guns N’ Roses.
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But the son of the late Eddie Van Halen and actress Valerie Bertinelli never thought he’d be part of an Academy Award-nominated song — sung by a Barbie doll, no less.
Yet Van Halen was, in fact, part of the team that recorded “I’m Just Ken,” the Ryan Gosling-sung piece from Greta Gerwig’s hit film Barbie. He plays guitar on the track, which was co-written and produced by Mark Ronson and Andrew Watt and features Slash on guitar, current Foo Fighters drummer Josh Freese on drums and Jelly Fish/Imperial Drag keyboardist Roger Manning.
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“I’m honestly happy just to be a part of it, to have an opportunity to play a super small part in it,” Van Halen tells Billboard. “It was a really, really wonderful opportunity. I knew (the movie) was good just from being involved in it and seeing what I was able to see. But to see the song I played on blow up as much as it did was pretty crazy.”
Van Halen was recruited for the track after meeting Ronson at the Taylor Hawkins tribute concert in London during September 2022. “Mark Ronson and I hit it off,” Van Halen remembers, “and he reached out and hit me up and it was just a really good time. I spent two days in his studio and we just played around with ideas and it was a really good time. (Ronson) and his writing partner Andrew are such wonderful dudes and amazing at what they do that it was an honor just to see how they worked.”
“I’m Just Ken” was a top 5 hit on the Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart during the summer and hit No. 87 on the Billboard Hot 100, while Barbie The Album reached No. 2 on the Billboard 200 and No. 1 on the Soundtrack Albums chart. During December, a “Merry Kristmas Barbie” version of the power ballad send-up was released, accompanied by a video boasting an in-studio performance. Gosling will perform the song at the 96th Academy Awards on Sunday (March 10); the band lineup for the show has not been announced, but Ronson, Watt and others who took part in the session are expected to be part of it. Mammoth WVH recently announced the postponement of three concerts this week which would have conflicted with the Oscars and rehearsals.
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“For Mark and Andrew to bring me into it, just to play some guitar in the movie, it was really, really wonderful,” Van Halen says. “I’d love to do something like that again, especially with those guys. They’re wonderful dudes and incredibly talented. Everybody in the movie, the whole production of it, are so deserving of every accolade they’re getting. It’s really exciting.”
Van Halen does not, however, see soundtrack composing in his future at the moment. “I’m still very much focused and driving on building Mammoth and seeing what is possible with that,” he explains. “But certainly, opportunities like the one that Mark gave me for Barbie, when they come up it’s very, ‘Okay, we can certainly make time for something like this.’ But I’m very much driven in terms of, ‘Let’s see where we can take Mammoth.’”
Van Halen has mostly been taking Mammoth on the road this year, supporting last August’s Mammoth II. The group is wrapping up the first leg of a U.S. headlining tour and will be playing Europe supporting Slash Featuring Myles Kennedy & the Conspirators during March and April. The group will also be supporting Metallica and Foo Fighters during the summer. Van Halen is also “tinkering” with new song ideas, though he says any plans for a third Mammoth WVH album are “super preliminary.”
In May, Van Halen and his father’s EVH instrument company will roll out a new line of SA-126 guitars, which he designed along with EVH masterbuilder Chip Ellis and Matt Bruck.
Amidst all the good news, Van Halen is still fighting off some haters, an ongoing battle that he’s addressed in songs such as “I’m Alright” and “Better Than You.” Most recently it was former Van Halen frontman David Lee Roth, who posted a lengthy video diatribe that referred to Van Halen as “this f–kin’ kid” and a “schlemiel kid” and accused him of kicking some of Roth’s guests out of the backstage area during shows. “I’m honored he thinks about me as much as he does, I guess,” Van Halen says in response, though quickly adding that, “I would sure love to not have to be part of some sort of Van Halen drama at all, so I think I’m just gonna continue to sit in my no-comment zone…’cause at the end of the day it’s just not worth it.”
But, he continues, “It’s one thing when there’s some due on Twitter saying a lie about me. But when there’s other people trying to lie about me and make me look bad? It’s just like, you can believe whatever you want, I guess. The people who hate me are gonna continue to hate me, and I’m just gonna be over here doing my thing.”
Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds will unleash Wild God later this year, the alternative rock outfit’s 18th studio album. Led by the title track, Wild God is the followup to Ghosteen, the critically-lauded two-disc longplay from 2019, which explored Cave’s exposure to grief and pain, following the sudden death of his son Arthur in 2015.
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That record went on to crack the top 10 on national charts in Australia (at No. 2) and the U.K. (No. 4) and impacted the Billboard 200 (at No. 108), and was shortlisted for several major music awards, including the Australian Music Prize and the U.K.’s Ivor Novello Awards. The album will drop Aug. 30 through Cave’s own label Bad Seed, via a new, exclusive worldwide licensing agreement with Play It Again Sam, an imprint of the independent [PIAS] label group.
“The new album is incredible,” enthuses Kenny Gates, co-founder and CEO of [PIAS], “in my opinion his best ever, and we will go over the barricades to deliver the global success it deserves.”
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Led by the ARIA Hall of Fame-inducted Cave, the current Bad Seeds lineup consists of Thomas Wydler, Martyn Casey, Jim Sclavunos, George Vjestica and longtime collaborator Warren Ellis, who produces the album with Cave.
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Mixed by David Fridmann, Cave began work on the album on New Year’s Day 2023, news of which he shared on his blog The Red Hand Files. “My plan for this year is to make a new record with the Bad Seeds,” he wrote at the time. “This is both good news and bad news. Good news because who doesn’t want a new Bad Seeds record? Bad news because I’ve got to write the bloody thing.”Spanning 10 track, the forthcoming LP was cut at Miraval Studios in Provence, France and Soundtree Studios in London, England, and features contributions from Radiohead’s Colin Greenwood (bass) and Luis Almau (nylon string guitar, acoustic guitar).
Greenwood will accompany the multihyphenate Cave on a solo tour of Australia, set to kick off April 25 with the first of a three-night stand at the MCEC Plenary Melbourne. Cave is expected to perform songs from his extensive catalog on the trek, presented by Billions.“I hope the album has the effect on listeners that it’s had on me,” Cave says of the new album. “It bursts out of the speaker, and I get swept up with it. It’s a complicated record, but it’s also deeply and joyously infectious. There is never a master plan when we make a record. The records rather reflect back the emotional state of the writers and musicians who played them. Listening to this, I don’t know, it seems we’re happy.”Wild God track listing: 1. Song of the Lake2. Wild God3. Frogs4. Joy5. Final Rescue Attempt6. Conversion7. Cinnamon Horses8. Long Dark Night9. O Wow O Wow (How Wonderful She Is)10. As the Waters Cover the Sea
Jim Beard, a solo artist and touring keyboardist for Steely Dan for the past 16 years has died at age 63. The news was confirmed by a spokesperson for the group in a statement on Wednesday (March 6) that revealed the pianist, composer, keyboardist, producer and arranger died on March 2 due to complications from a sudden illness; at press time a cause of death had not been announced.
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Beard joined the live Steely Dan band in 2008 for the Think Fast Tour and in addition to performing with the long-running jazz-influenced rock group — including at his final show with the band on Jan. 20 in Phoenix, AZ — he was also a touring member of the Eagles on their Long Goodbye tour.
Born in Ridley Park, Pennsylvania on August 26, 1960, Beard took clarinet, saxophone and sting bass lessons as a teenager and studied jazz at Indiana University, where he played in a bar band that featured session drummer Kenny Aronoff (John Mellencamp, John Fogerty) and trumpet player Chris Botti.
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According to an official bio, after moving to New York in 1985, Beard set off on a prolific career of composing — on tracks by John McLaughlin, Michael Brecker and many others — and toured the world with such jazz greats as Pat Metheny, McLaughlin and Wayne Shorter. He also performed on recordings by Dizzy Gillespie, Al Jarreau, David Sandborn, Dianne Reeves, Meshell Ndegeocello and rock guitar virtuoso Steve Vai, as well as with the Metropole Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra as well as composing music for TV and movie scores.
Between tours with Metheny and McLaughlin’s Mahavishu Orchestra, Beard recorded six solo CDs and taught at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, the Mason Gross School of Arts at Rutgers University, the Aaron Copland School of Music in New York and the Sibelius Academy in Finland. Beard’s productions and compositions were nominated for seven Grammy awards, with one win in 2007 for his playing on “Some Skunk Funk” by Randy and Michael Brecker.
The Doobie Brothers‘ 50th anniversary reunion, which is heading into its third year of touring, is yielding some new music as well.
Co-founders Patrick Simmons and Tom Johnston tell Billboard they’re both stoked about the band’s next album, which it’s finishing work on with Michael McDonald. The singer/keyboardist was with the Doobies from 1975-1982 and has been back in the fold since anniversary tour was first announced in 2019 and then delayed by the pandemic.
Produced by John Shanks — who also handled 2021’s Liberte, the band’s first set of new material in 11 years — it will be the Doobies’ first album with McDonald since One Step Closer in 1980 and the first Doobies album to include McDonald, guitarists Patrick Simmons and Tom Johnston since Takin’ It to the Streets in 1975. McDonald also sang backing vocals on the Doobies’ 2014 album Southbound.
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“We probably kicked (a new album) around a little bit, but not a lot,” Johnston says. “Those things just start. They just sorta happen. This whole band has been like that; things just happen through the years — songs, albums.”
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Simmons, the lone Doobie Brother to be part of the band’s entire 54-year career, shared the news with fans via a social media post. “It’s very exciting,” he tells Billboard. “At one point I said, ‘Hey, we’re doing all these dates… As long as we’re doing this it would make sense to do a record. I think people would really get a kick out of that.’” With a chuckle he adds that, “We have yet to find out whether they’ll get a kick out of it or whether we’ll get kicked for it.”
The latter is unlikely, of course. McDonald’s tenure with the band — coming after he worked with Steely Dan — was among its most successful. Brought in to help the Doobies while Johnston was suffering burn-out, McDonald contributed hits such as “Takin’ It to the Streets,” “It Keeps You Runnin’,” “You Belong to Me” (co-written with Carly Simon) and “Real Love.” The triple-platinum Minute By Minute album in 1978, meanwhile, was the Doobies’ sole No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and won three Grammy Awards including Record of the Year for the hit “What a Fool Believes.”
Simmons says he’s particularly happy to have himself, Johnston and McDonald — as well as fourth Doobies principal guitarist John McFee — fully engaged together on the new album. “It’s nice that Tom has an opportunity to interact with Mike musically because they have so much in common as far as their love of R&B and the people they admire,” he explains. “They never really got a chance to interact in this way before, so it makes me happy to see that happening. It’s more than the sum of our parts, I think.”
Each of the main Doobies, collaborating with Shanks, have contributed several songs to the set, which has no announced title and release date yet — although Simmons says the goal is to finish recording before the summer tour begins June 15 in Seattle. “I would put it half, maybe 60 percent where we’re at now as far as completion,” Simmons says. “The songs are done. The arrangements are pretty close.”
He’s particularly stoked about a gospel-flavored track called “Walk This Road” that features lead vocals by both McDonald and Johnston as well as guest Mavis Staples. “John Shanks had assumed I knew Mavis was singing on it, and I had no idea,” Simmons says with a laugh. “I hear this voice and I’m going, ‘What the…? Tommy is really killing it;’ it didn’t’ really sound like him but he has that quality to his voice. But it was Mavis, and… the three of them singing, I’m telling ya it just floored me. And there’s a bunch of other great tracks, just some killer — for me, anyway — great songs on this record, some ferocious tracks.”
Johnston, meanwhile, predicts that, “This one’s probably a little moreso diverse because Michael is involved in all the tunes, but that’s fine, man. It’s an extension of what we’re doing on the road.”
In addition to the album, McDonald is publishing What a Fool Believes: A Memoir, co-written with Paul Reiser, on May 21. He also contributed to 2022’s Long Train Runnin’: Our Story of the Doobie Brothers, which Simmons and Johnston helmed.
“It’s been a lot of fun,” Simmons says of the continuing Doobies reunion. “We’re having a good time. It’s kind of continuing what we’ve been doing for the last 50 years and we still do things the same way for the most part, but having Mike on board again is great. I think it’s just having great artists, great creative people and talented guys that write the material… and then we have a great band. We’ve always had really great musicians, great singers. I think that really helps with how people perceive the band at any given time. It’s as strong now as it ever was.”
The Boss is back, and he’s heading home.
As previously reported, Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band will hit the road for their latest world tour, kicking off March 19 at the Footprint Center in Phoenix, AZ and stretching across 52 dates in 17 countries.
One of those dates is a recent addition. Springsteen and Co. are now booked for a homecoming spot headlining the second of two nights at the Sea.Hear.Now Festival, set for Sept. 15 at Asbury Park, New Jersey (“Stick Season” singer Noah Kahan will headline the previous day’s program).
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The 74-year-old rock legend singer is now symptom free from a peptic ulcer disease that plagued him last year, forcing the band off the road and postponing a long run of shows into 2024. Those postponed dates are worked into the forthcoming tour, set to wrap up Nov. 22 at Rogers Arena in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Springsteen warmed up the trek with performances at the 2024 MusiCares Person Of The Year gala, the 17th annual Stand Up For Heroes benefit and at the New Jersey Hall of Fame induction honoring Patti Scialfa.
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To celebrate the trans-Atlantic tour dates, Springsteen’s longtime label home Sony Music will release a career-spanning collection of the Rock And Roll Hall of Famer’s original music, on April 19.
The Best of Bruce Springsteen will house 31 songs in digital formats. Sony Music will also issue an 18-track set across two LPs or one CD. The vinyl edition will also be available as an Amazon exclusive “color variant,” reps say.
Check out Bruce Springsteen And The E Street Band’s 2024 tour dates:
March 19 – Phoenix, AZ @ Footprint CenterMarch 22 – Las Vegas, NV @ T-Mobile ArenaMarch 25 – San Diego, CA @ Pechanga ArenaMarch 28 – San Francisco, CA @ Chase CenterMarch 31 – San Francisco, CA @ Chase CenterApril 4 – Inglewood, CA @ Kia ForumApril 7 – Inglewood, CA @ Kia ForumApril 12 – Uncasville, CT @ Mohegan Sun ArenaApril 15 – Albany, NY @ MVP ArenaApril 18 – Syracuse, NY @ JMA Wireless DomeApril 21 – Columbus, OH @ Nationwide ArenaMay 5 – Cardiff, Wales @ Principality StadiumMay 9 – Belfast, Northern Ireland @ Boucher RoadMay 12 – Kilkenny, Ireland @ Nowlan ParkMay 16 – Cork, Ireland @ Páirc Uí ChaoimhMay 19 – Dublin, Ireland @ Croke ParkMay 22 – Sunderland, England @ Stadium of LightMay 25 – Marseille, France @ Orange VélodromeMay 28 – Prague, Czech Republic @ Airport LetnanyJune 1 – Milan, Italy @ San Siro StadiumJune 3 – Milan, Italy @ San Siro StadiumJune 12 – Madrid, Spain @ Cívitas MetropolitanoJune 14 – Madrid, Spain @ Cívitas MetropolitanoJune 17 – Madrid, Spain @ Cívitas MetropolitanoJune 20 – Barcelona, Spain @ Estadi OlímpicJune 22 – Barcelona, Spain @ Estadi OlímpicJune 27 – Nijmegen, Netherlands @ GoffertparkJune 29 – Nijmegen, Netherlands @ GoffertparkJuly 2 – Werchter, Belgium @ Werchter ParkJuly 5 – Hannover, Germany @ Heinz von Heiden ArenaJuly 9 – Odense, Denmark @ DyrskuepladsenJuly 12 – Helsinki, Finland @ Olympic StadiumJuly 15 – Stockholm, Sweden @ Friends ArenaJuly 18 – Stockholm, Sweden @ Friends ArenaJuly 21 – Bergen, Norway @ DokkenJuly 25 – London, England @ Wembley Stadium connected by EEJuly 27 – London, England @ Wembley Stadium connected by EEAug. 15 – Pittsburgh, PA @ PPG Paints ArenaAug. 18 – Pittsburgh, PA @ PPG Paints ArenaAug. 21 – Philadelphia, PA @ Citizens Bank ParkAug. 23 – Philadelphia, PA @ Citizens Bank ParkSept. 7 – Washington, DC @ Nationals ParkSept. 13 – Baltimore, MD @ Oriole Park at Camden YardsSept. 15 – Asbury Park, NJ @ Sea.Hear.Now FestivalOct. 31 – Montreal, Quebec @ Centre BellNov. 3 – Toronto, Ontario @ Scotiabank ArenaNov. 6 – Toronto, Ontario @ Scotiabank ArenaNov. 9 – Ottawa, Ontario @ Canadian Tire CentreNov. 13 – Winnipeg, Manitoba @ Canada Life CentreNov. 16 – Calgary, Alberta @ Scotiabank SaddledomeNov. 19 – Edmonton, Alberta @ Rogers PlaceNov. 22 – Vancouver, British Columbia @ Rogers Arena
More than five decades after its release, Black Sabbath’s “Paranoid” joins Spotify’s Billions Club – an elite collection of works that have accumulated more than one billion streams. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news Recognized as a classic of the heavy metal genre, “Paranoid” is the title […]
On Tuesday (Mar. 5), Korn announced a 30th anniversary celebration for the fall, commemorating three decades since the beloved hard rock group’s debut. The one-night-only event will be held on Oct. 5 at BMO Stadium in Los Angeles, with special guests Evanescence, Gojira, Daron Malakian and Scars on Broadway, Spiritbox and Vended among the special guests joining the special Korn performance.
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The band has hinted at a rollicking year to toast the 30th anniversary of their 1994 self-titled debut, with a string of European festival performances kicking off in July, as well as a slot at Louder Than Life 2024 in Louisville in September. For Brian “Head” Welch, however, 2024 has also brought the extension of his long-running advocacy for mental health awareness and treatment.
In January, the Korn guitarist announced a partnership with Atlantic Behavioral Health, a newly opened treatment center serving Massachusetts and New Hampshire and focusing on mental health disorders, including anxiety and depression. Atlantic offers medication management, individual therapy and group therapy as part of their outpatient program, and Welch has been active in encouraging patients as part of the new partnership.
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“As I get older, I start to reflect on my life and what I’ve been given, and also my responsibilities,” says the 53-year-old Welch, who has spoken extensively about his addiction issues and struggles with mental health that played a part in him departing Korn in 2005 before rejoining the group in 2012. “People look to us, they hear what we’re sharing. It’s been really cool to give back, and to see other people doing so as well.”
Last month, Welch spoke to Billboard about linking up with Atlantic Behavioral Health, becoming more open about discussing his internal struggles, and challenging himself to give back during a busy year. (Ed. note — this interview has been condensed for clarity.)
How did this partnership come about?
I’m gonna go way back — I started experimenting with alcohol and drugs at 14, just massive drinking through my teenage years, a functioning alcoholic. And I joined a band, and then we got signed, and the drugs and alcohol just went on for a decade. I left the band and got my life together, and I’ve just been trying to help people that were like me back then.
When I rejoined Korn in 2012, a couple years after that, I met this kid Justin, who was a massive heroin addict, crack addict, everything. And I befriended him, got to know his family really well, tried to help him when, honestly, it wasn’t looking good. And then he finally got his life together, and got sober, and I opened sober living homes with him in the Boston, New Hampshire area. We did that for a while, and he’s been able to help so many people, and then we met some more people in the industry. We found that a lot of the addicts, when they get sober, they don’t know who they are, they don’t know how to feel. And that’s why a lot of people relapse, because they’re not comfortable in their own skin. And so that’s where the mental health aspect comes into it.
We met some amazing people in the industry, talked to them about this idea, and they have a couple outpatient and impact patient rehabs in the Boston area, so we partnered with them to [focus on] the mental health aspect. We want to help people that are struggling, with addiction or with mental health.
From what you just described, it sounds like you evolved from your own issues, to helping one other person with their issues, to finding a whole community of support.
And I really feel like I didn’t have that back in the day. I’m sure there were some programs, but an all-in-one program, with medication consulting and group therapy and one-on-one therapy, like the whole package — I wish I would have had something like that when I was going through my issues. I’ve sat in on group, and I’m going to continue to do so. I’m going to grab some of my men and women from the music industry to come on Zoom and sit in group and encourage people.
Man, I was so lost, and I had so many mental health issues. And it had nothing to do with being rich and famous or not, because I was successful! I just had a horrible time with my emotions and mental state. But I’m living proof that you can get through it, and you can change. You can get to a new place where you find contentment in life, where you find joy.
How do you think this partnership will play out on a weekly and monthly basis?
I’ve sat in on group, and I’m going to continue to do so. I’m going to grab some of my peers from the music industry to come on Zoom and sit in group and encourage people. I’ll do things in person, I’ll do things on Zoom when I’m on tour and whatnot. It’s amazing to be a part of, and what I love about it the most is that there’s a wide variety of different people that come — male and female, gay and straight, old and young. Everybody has something in common, and they’re all discussing what kind of tools to use when they get into that dark space in their mind.
You’ve been speaking out for years about your battles with addiction and mental health issues. Over the course of that time, have you seen others become increasingly open to discussing these issues in public?
When I was 16 or 17, I went through this phase where I didn’t want to be around my parents, I just wanted to be by myself. Some of that’s normal for teenagers, but I think mine was a little bit deeper, because my dad had alcohol issues and anger issues, and he was a good dad, but some of the unpredictable emotional outbursts — I was getting bitter from some of the experiences.
And so they took me into counseling, and dude, I did not want to go into counseling. I would have rather just run away, I would have rather have gotten beat up, than talk about my feelings. It was like an open wound that someone was trying to touch, so I just lived my life in avoidance — I wanted to avoid any issues that were internal or mental, and I avoided it by just drinking. I did that for years, and then when I started getting sober, I started opening up more as I got older, and got really scared that I didn’t want to live my life. The alcohol and the drugs worked for a while to numb it, and then, as we all know, that starts to turn on you.
I started to open up, and as I reached out more, and I started to find counselors who I’d work with one-on-one — but I didn’t have that [community], that group aspect, any of those options. That’s really changed a lot.
With the Korn 30th anniversary and your Atlantic partnership, it sounds like it’s going to be a busy year for you.
It is, man. I mean, Korn and my family are in California, and then Atlantic’s in Boston. My daughter’s in Indiana, and then there’s touring, so to juggle everything is sometimes a challenge. But I like a challenge — I think it’s good as we get older to keep active, so I’m just gonna do the best I can. And for Atlantic, the doctors and therapists are the rock stars, and I’m just getting the word out. I’m really honored to be a part of it, even in a small way.