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The lineup for the 2025 MusiCares Person of the Year benefit gala held in tribute to the Grateful Dead in Los Angeles has been revealed.
On Monday (Jan. 20), The Hollywood Reporter announced the artists attached to the Grammy Week event scheduled for Jan. 31 at the Los Angeles Convention Center.
Dead & Company (which includes Grateful Dead co-founders Bob Weir and Mickey Hart), John Mayer, Mick Fleetwood with Stewart Copeland, Norah Jones, Maren Morris, Noah Kahan, Vampire Weekend, Sierra Farrell and Lukas Nelson, Dwight Yoakam, Billy Strings, My Morning Jacket, Sammy Hagar, the War and Treaty and the War on Drugs are set for the event, as well as previous Grateful Dead collaborator Bruce Hornsby. Andy Cohen will be the MC.
Original Grateful Dead members Mickey Hart, Bill Kreutzmann and Bob Weir will be recognized for their contributions to music, their philanthropic efforts and the group’s pioneering role in fostering communities through their concerts and activism. Two of the band’s founding members, the late Jerry Garcia and Phil Lesh, who passed away in October, will be honored posthumously.
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The Grateful Dead is the third band to receive the honor, following Fleetwood Mac (2018) and Aerosmith (2020). The esteemed list of MusiCares Person of the Year honorees also includes Jon Bon Jovi, Berry Gordy, Smokey Robinson, Joni Mitchell, Dolly Parton, Tom Petty, Lionel Richie, Bob Dylan, Carole King, Bruce Springsteen, Paul McCartney, Barbra Streisand, Neil Young, Neil Diamond, Aretha Franklin, Don Henley, James Taylor, Brian Wilson, Sting, Bono, Billy Joel, Paul Simon, Elton John, Stevie Wonder, Luciano Pavarotti, Phil Collins, Quincy Jones, Tony Bennett, Gloria Estefan, Natalie Cole, Bonnie Raitt and David Crosby.
It was confirmed that the 2025 MusiCares Persons of the Year event will go on as planned last week, amid the wildfires that have devastated the Los Angeles area. The announcement came a day after the Recording Academy said the Grammys are still on for Feb. 2.
“Your attendance at Persons of the Year and your ongoing generosity will support these continued vital efforts, helping those in urgent need and signaling to the world that this vibrant city is on its feet,” MusiCares said in a statement. “At our upcoming Persons of the Year, we will make a special appeal for donations to support our wildfire relief efforts. We invite you to join us in spreading the word to your friends and family by sharing this link: www.musicares.org/FireRelief.”
Since 1991, the MusiCares Person of the Year gala has raised funds to support MusiCares’ health and human services programs, which offer physical and mental health care, addiction recovery, preventive clinics, unforeseen personal emergencies and disaster relief to music professionals.
Lucy Dacus‘ “Ankles” has been crowned the winner of this week’s new music poll, which features a diverse range of artists and genres. The new track received nearly 66% of the vote in a poll published Friday (Jan. 17) on Billboard, outpacing other notable new releases like Hailey Whitters’ “Casseroles,” Mac Miller’s Balloonerism, Mumford & […]
On the first day of recording her debut album, Jasmine Cruickshank found herself in one of the most famous recording studios in the world, squeezed into a tiny room and singing with three other people — two of whom were Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus.
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Cruickshank, the British singer-songwriter who performs as Jasmine.4.t, had just arrived in Los Angeles from her home in Manchester, and had met her band mate Phoenix Rousiamanis at Sound City Studios, the birthplace of albums like Neil Young’s After the Gold Rush and Nirvana’s Nevermind. “Phoebe was giving us a tour of the studio, because that was where Punisher was recorded,” Cruickshank tells Billboard. “She took me, Phoenix and Lucy in the Echo Chamber, which is this concrete room where they create natural reverbs and just has this really beautiful sound. And they were like, ‘Oh, let’s sing a song!’”
The quartet began harmonizing on “Kitchen,” the wounded, finger-picked folk song which would become the first track on the first Jasmine.4.t album. Cruickshank exhales thinking about the sing-along. “It was just this beautiful moment,” she says.
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It was one that would have been unimaginable for Cruickshank just a few years ago. A trans woman who came out in 2021, Cruickshank spent months without a home after her marriage fell apart, alienated from loved ones who did not accept her — but also embracing her new identity, finding uplift in Manchester’s queer community, and experiencing the joy of her first trans romance.
The highs and lows of that whirlwind experience are captured in brilliant detail on You Are the Morning, her debut album released on Friday (Jan. 17). Although Jasmine.4.t’s songs span different iterations of indie rock — guitars whoosh on “Skin On Skin” and are gently strummed on “Best Friend’s House,” while piano and strings are effectively dotted across the album — her soft, subtly powerful voice remains the album’s foundation, an uncompromising instrument sharing a one-of-a-kind story.
Not only is Jasmine.4.t the first U.K. signee on Bridgers’ label, Saddest Factory Records, but You Are the Morning was produced by Bridgers, Dacus and Julien Baker, the three members of the arena-level indie supergroup Boygenius. Their individual presences are felt throughout the album — Bridgers duets on the mid-tempo rocker “Guy Fawkes Tesco Dissociation,” for instance, and all three members sing backing vocals on the hushed ballad “Highfield” — in a way that will delight Boygenius completists. Plus, Jasmine.4.t and her all-trans backing band will be opening for Dacus on her North American headlining tour, which kicks off in April.
Yet You Are the Morning stands on its own as a breathtaking debut, which is why Jasmine.4.t is Billboard’s inaugural Rock/Alternative Rookie of the Month. Below, Cruickshank discusses her personal journey, her friendship with Dacus, creating art alongside the trans community, and more. [Editor’s note: this interview was been condensed for clarity.]
How did the label deal with Saddest Factory come together?
I knew Phoebe through Lucy, and I knew Lucy pre-transition. I used to play in this two-piece garage rock band, and we opened for Sunflower Bean, and the promoter didn’t pay us. We and Sunflower Bean were [arguing] with the promoter as a consequence, and the boss of the promotion company was like, “You’ll never play in this town again!” But then the local promoter was like, “Don’t worry about him. I’ll make sure you get some really nice shows off the back of this horrible experience.”
One of the shows that he got me was a solo show opening for Lucy Dacus, on her first album tour. And then we just got on so well — we had pizza next door before the show. Lucy was like, “I’d love to have you along for my next tour in Europe,” which was for the Historian album, which I f–king love. We really bonded on that tour, and then we kept in touch, and sent each other downloads, quite a lot.
I got really sick during lockdown, and I had a lot of time alone with my thoughts — insulated from the societal pressures and expectations of masculinity. And I was like, “You know what? I think I’m gonna transition.” And Lucy was actually one of the first people that I came out to, and Lucy was a lot more accepting than a lot of the other people in my life.
I ended up having to escape my marriage and Bristol, my hometown. I came to stay with some friends up in Manchester, and was sleeping on sofas and floors, and in people’s spare rooms for a while. That was when I wrote the songs that are on the album, and I was sending them back and forth with Lucy as well. And she was like, “Oh, I’d love to produce your music.”
I submitted a little demo playlist to Saddest Factory. A few months later, Lucy was like, “We just listened to your demos in the car, and Phoebe is now on the phone with her manager, talking about signing you.” And then I opened for Boygenius when they came to to the UK, which was wild, and then I think it was the next day that I signed.
How did all three members of Boygenius become so involved with creating the album?
I formed a band of trans women here in Manchester, and the label flew us out to L.A. to record at Sound City Studios. Lucy has already said that she wanted to produce, and when Phoebe signed me, she was like, “Actually, I want to produce the record.” Then Phoebe called me before we flew out and said, “Actually, I think Julien’s gonna be in town, so we’re thinking — we’re all gonna produce, together.”
I can’t even imagine what it was like to hear that.
I was like, “This is the best thing that’s ever gonna happen to me.” It was so cool working with them all in the studio. They all brought so much to the recording process, and seeing them work together, it’s so cool how ego-less they all are when interacting — it so easy to create with them, just a very chill environment.
They’ve obviously built this way of working together and creating their records, this routine, and part of that routine is Julien’s ’tone quest,’ where Julien would spend a good hour or two selecting guitars, selecting amplifiers, selecting pedals, different microphones. It’s something that I’d never put too much thought into myself before, but then just seeing Julien talk about guitar tones, it just gave me so much joy and warmth. Having Julien solos on a few of the songs — in particular, I f–king love the solos on “Skin on Skin” — they just really make the tracks.
Your songwriting contains so many details about the singular journey you’ve taken as a person. How healing of a process to put this album together, and finish songs that were written at a very different point in your life?
It’s insane thinking about where I was when I was writing these songs — I was really struggling, honestly. I thought I was already dead — I had this persistent delusion that I had died, and that I was living as some kind of ghost or zombie. “Guy Fawkes Tesco Dissociation” is about that experience.
And thinking about now, where I’ve found my people, I’m in my own home, I own this house, I have a whole new family. I’ve gone to L.A. and recorded an album with Lucy and Phoebe and Julien, and I have a band, and it’s all trans women. I never could have anticipated this, and it has been very healing. And I hope that it can bring some kind of hope for a brighter future for other trans women as well who’ve been through similar situations.
I think what I’ve been through is sadly a very common experience for a lot of trans women. So many trans people experience homelessness. I’ve experienced a lot of street violence, and that’s very common as well. Not to mention suicide, sadly. Right now in the U.K. and in the U.S., it’s a horrible time to come out as a trans woman — it’s not safe. And it’s kind of terrifying doing what I’m doing right now and being so visible. I get a lot of s–t on the streets and online, as all trans women do. But I think it’s worth it because I get so much love, and so many [positive] messages. Just today, someone was like, “I just listened to ‘Elephant’ for the first time, I transitioned like 10 years ago, and I don’t think that anyone has captured these feelings of loving someone as a trans person for the first time as accurately.”
I think we’re going through so much as a community. Every November, we have a day called Trans Day of Remembrance, where we list all of the trans people who have died by violence over the past year — and this year was more than any other year before. It’s such a tiny community, and we all feel so close to death, we all feel so close to these experiences, whether we’re lucky enough to have a stable life or not. It’s difficult for people who don’t experience that to grasp, and I think that we often feel so distanced from society at large as a consequence. We often meet friction when our needs aren’t met or we’re not understood, and even well-meaning people can play into systemic imbalances that we see when we’re so underrepresented in the music industry, or society at large. It means a lot for people to feel seen and understood, and I feel very lucky to be able to provide that through my music — and to be able to talk about these things on a more mainstream, visible platform.
You mentioned your band of all trans women, and you also worked with the Trans Chorus of Los Angeles on the final song, “Woman.” Considering this moment in history, what has it been like to be surrounded by other members of the trans community while performing?
I think you hit the nail on the head when you said “this moment in history,” because it did feel like we were making history. There were so many moments where we looked around in this iconic studio, that has meant so much to music history, are were all very aware of what those moments [meant]. On the last day in the Studio A live room, which is the biggest live room at Sound City — to be in there, recording in a room completely full of trans people, it just felt like such a magical moment.
I think we were all aware of the cultural and societal context that is the backdrop for this album, and how important it is to be spotlighting trans artists and raising each other up, and how terrifying it is to be visible. It was incredibly emotional. I remember there was a moment where Phoenix was conducting the chorus, and I looked around, and Lucy had tears in her eyes, just watching it all happen.
We definitely all felt that we were creating this piece of history, and I hope that it can be remembered that we filled that space with trans people. But even if it’s not, to us personally, it just meant so much.
Throughout his career, Kele Okereke has never been one to stand still. When Billboard UK calls the Bloc Party vocalist and guitarist to discuss The Singing Winds Pt. 3, his new solo album released Jan. 17, Okereke paces around his London home for the duration of our chat, working his mind (and body) while he reflects on an illustrious career in music — one that has never remained in a single place.
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Okereke’s new project is his seventh solo studio album since 2010, and the third installment to his Elements project, which has taken inspiration from the forces around us. It kicked off in 2021 with The Waves Pt. 1 and was followed by The Flames Pt. 2 in 2023, both born out of a necessity to create during lockdown. Each collection is written and produced solely by Okereke in his home studio and with minimal tools.
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“It was important to me to do everything myself and for every sound to be made by my guitar,” he says. “During the lockdowns, I was at home and not really sure what I was going to do with my life, but I knew that I still wanted to be creative. It forced me to go back to the guitar. It gave me a new appreciation for the instrument.”
In the coming months, Okereke will head out on the road to tour this project, his first time using loop pedals and building each song live on stage. Then it’s back to Bloc Party to celebrate the 20th anniversary of its beloved 2005 debut album Silent Alarm, which the band will be playing in full across the U.K. at some of its largest outdoor shows to date.
Upon release, the LP landed to No. 3 on the U.K.’s Official Albums Chart and has endured as an essential of 21st century indie rock. A sonic fusion of influences from post-punk to electronica, plus lyrics that touched upon the British government’s disastrous war in Iraq and Afghanistan during the mid-’00s, set the group apart both from chaotic, romantic contemporaries like The Libertines and fashionable, sexy art-school graduates like Franz Ferdinand.
The group released a number of records in the ensuing years, notably 2007’s cult classic A Weekend In The City (No. 12 on the Billboard 200) and more recently 2022’s Alpha Games. Okereke still leads from the front with founding member Russell Lissack (guitars), plus Louise Bartle (drums) and Harry Deacon (bass) now completing the lineup; other founding members Matt Tong and Gordon Moakes left the band in 2013 and 2015, respectively.
As he releases The Singing Winds Pt. 3 and preps an upcoming tour with Bloc Party, Okereke speaks to Billboard UK about the project, his upcoming memoir and the enduring appeal of Silent Alarm.
You’re on the third installment of this project with The Singing Winds Pt. 3. What has it given you creatively?
It started very much as an accident or chance. It’s given me a focus and has been a somewhat indulgent but incredibly enjoyable way to throw myself into music. When I started making solo records [in 2010] it was very much a reaction to the fact that with Bloc Party, we were a guitar band and I wanted to get away from that. I wanted to explore other worlds and that’s what I did with the first four records – they were all coming from different places.
You started releasing the project in 2021. Did you anticipate it unfolding over this time period?
I always knew that it was going to take a while. When you’re writing these songs, you have to live your life and be inspired. Back then when I was working on The Waves, I didn’t really know what the next records were going to sound like, but [after] a year of living and experimenting, and being creative with Bloc Party and working on something very different, it shows you where you need to go next. I knew it was going to be a longer form project, but I really like the pace. I’m composing and writing a lot at home and you’re waiting for inspiration to spark.
Is each LP a reaction to the last in the series?
Doing these interviews and looking backwards retrospectively you can see a path, but at the time you’re just inching around in the dark. When I was making The Waves, it was tonally all in one place so I knew that I needed to go somewhere different next. To me when you listen to that record, it feels like you’re bobbing on water – there’s no drums or percussion, it’s just this floating thing. Whereas with The Flames the sounds are very brittle and abrasive and extreme, and it’s been interesting to see that in the writing process.
The point about this project is that I wanted each of these elements to have quite a different sonic and emotional personality. They’re all connected to the classical elements and it’s interesting to consider how I could refer to those elements in the song and the lyrics and the textures of the record.
On this release there’s a lot of candour, particularly on “The Arrangement” which highlights a broken romantic relationship. You’ve always been vulnerable in your songwriting, but as you get older and have your own family, do you censor yourself at all because of the real-world consequences?
There are moments of vulnerability in this record, and throughout my career I’ve always written from an emotional place, but in the past things would be hidden in abstraction and just glimpses of my personal life; for the most part I’ve been quite guarded in things.
With this next Bloc Party record, it’s very personal and confessional, and I’ve never really done that as a songwriter. I’ve always preferred an element of distance. But in the past year I’ve been through quite an unbelievable time and had some very difficult relationships with people, and this is the only place to put all of that.
This next [Bloc Party] record I’m making will be about the study of a fleeting relationship from start to finish. And it’s going to be incredibly personal, but I’m excited about that because it’s something I’ve never really done before. I’ve never really spoken directly, and this time I will.
Can you tell us anything more about what listeners might hear?
Without wanting to go into too much detail, I had a relationship with someone that wasn’t honest and I think I need the world to see that. So this next Bloc Party record is going to come from a place of necessity. We’ve written everything and we’ll be recording soon, and hopefully will be out in 2026. The only thing I will say is that ‘heartbreak’ is a term that people keep bandying around about these songs. It’s going to be emotional, for sure.
You’re heading out on the road this summer for the 20th anniversary of Silent Alarm. What’s your relationship like to that album?
Obviously I’m thankful that it has resonated and stood the test of time. Before we made that record we had a bit of a name for ourselves and a song or two out and it was this underground, exciting thing. But when we made the record we knew we had to strive further than what people were expecting of us.We knew it had to be expansive and there was this fear that we might be pushing it too far when we were in the studio, but we didn’t succumb to that, and I’m glad that we managed to express what we wanted to express. I’m glad that it worked and we made the best record we could, because it has stood the test of time.
Kele Okereke
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At the end of last year you released Another Weekend In The City, a companion record of B-sides from around the time of your sophomore album. It must be nice to see that excitement towards other pieces of music from throughout your career, not just Silent Alarm…
It’s nice to be able to go back and listen to those records, and to remember where I was when I wrote them, the conversations that I was having and the people that were in my life. That’s the stuff that comes back to me when I go back to these songs and I don’t really do that so often. I had to do it for Silent Alarm as I had to relearn the songs. I’ve always been obsessed with looking forward, but I am recognizing that we’ve done something quite good and it’s nice to bask in that sometimes.
Both records and 2008’s Intimacy had instant success on the charts and took you around the world. How did that feel in the moment?
Growing up when we were listening to music and going to shows, they weren’t bands that were on the cover of the NME and weren’t that in your face. So when that stuff started happening for us it was surreal to feel like we’d leapfrogged somehow where we thought we were going to be.
On top of the success we were having, it was nice that people were noticing us outside of the U.K. in the US, Europe and Australia and that we weren’t just a British band. There are still a lot of bands that are successful in the U.K. but don’t necessarily translate to other territories for some reason, but for us it felt quite immediate that people all around the world were curious about us – and that’s maintained.
I’ve heard that you’re in the process of writing a memoir. How’s that going?
I can’t say much about it but I’m about halfway through. I’m enjoying it, for sure. I was a little bit reluctant before because I’ve always been quite a private person, and there was something about the idea of writing my life in my words and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do that. But I started it and it’s amazing what has come back to me and my life over 20 years ago. Things that I never thought about or remembered unless I was doing this process. It’s giving me a perspective on things that I wouldn’t have had unless I forced myself to stop and look back.
I suppose it gives you the chance to write your own story in your own words. The discourse when you started your career was written by other people, particularly the indie press which had a bigger influence back then…
Having been around for so long, you have the sense that people have an understanding or belief about who you are or the perception of who you are, so it’ll be fun to present my story in my words. That was something I found very frustrating at the start of our career: you’d do interviews with journalists and you’d talk passionately and have a great conversation, then you’d read the interview and it would just be a reduction of everything you said. The one line where you inadvertently mentioned another band, it’d get taken into the pull quote where you slagged someone off.
There was so much of that at the start of our career, and I realized very quickly that I had to insulate myself from that. I just stopped reading the interviews, reviews and features because even though we were successful and it was a positive time, it also felt like a bit of a caricature of who I knew we were.
Alpha Games got a great response from fans. Does the wider response to your music from fans or critics impact you these days?
I think very early on that to do this job the right way, I had to not listen to what anyone else said… from our immediate team to the fans as well. I know that might sound controversial, but once the record is out there it’s not mine anymore. I only listened to Silent Alarm recently to relearn the songs; I’m never going to have the experience that other people have listening to my music, but I’m fine with that. Why I do this job is that I love creating music, and pulling ideas out of the air and making them come back through the speakers. The only thing I serve is that process is bringing songs into the world. So once they’re done and out there, that’s it for me.
Maybe that sounds naïve, but that’s the way I’ve been operating for the past 20 years, and probably the reason why I’ve made so much music in these past few years — because that’s why I do it. I know I’m in a fortunate position with the success I’ve had, but also this is my life and I love it. I feel grateful that 20 years later I’m still able to create.
The Singing Winds Pt. 3 is out now on Kola.
Coldplay‘s never-ending Music of the Spheres tour has already set records as the best-selling and highest-grossing rock tour ever thanks to 10 million tickets sold and grosses over $1 billion to date during its three-year run. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news But next week, the “feelslikeimfallinginlove” […]
Inhaler have shared a new single titled “A Question Of You,” ahead of their forthcoming album, Open Wide (due Feb. 7 via Polydor).
Following recent tracks “Your House” and “Open Wide,” it marks the third preview to be lifted from the Irish band’s third record. The 13-track collection was recorded in London’s iconic RAK Studios with producer Kid Harpoon, who scooped a bevy of Grammy and BRIT awards in 2023 for his work on Harry Styles‘ blockbuster 2022 LP Harry’s House.
“This is love song territory for me,” said frontman Elijah Hewson, describing “A Question Of You” in a press release. “It’s about how in order to be honest with someone else you’ve got to be honest with yourself, like, ‘I’ve gotta sort my own s–t out so I can be around other people’. The choir really changed everything on this [song].”
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The release of Open Wide will coincide with Inhaler’s biggest headline tour to date. Through next month, the four-piece will perform at sold-out venues across the U.K, including two nights at the capital’s Brixton Academy. In May, they’ll perform a huge, 20,000-capacity hometown show at Dublin’s St. Anne’s Park alongside Stockport indie group Blossoms.
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Inhaler’s debut album It Won’t Always Be Like This soared to the summit of the Official U.K. Albums Chart in July 2021. They ended their release week with 18,000 chart sales, according to the Official Charts Company, with 92% of that sum generated by physical sales. The achievement also made Inhaler the first Irish act to top the chart with their debut in 13 years.
Its follow-up, Cuts & Bruises, which arrived two years later, landed at No. 2. Speaking to Billboard upon release, drummer Ryan MacMahon described Inhaler’s sophomore effort as “an album of love songs, about loving your friends,” adding that its songs were made to sound “a lot more loose and like a live band – which is what we wanted to achieve with the record.”
In recent years, the band have gone on to open for Arctic Monkeys, as well as tour the U.K. and European festival circuit extensively with shows at Reading & Leeds and Glasgow’s TRNSMT. Their 2025 live plans include a return to the latter, plus a slot at Warrington’s Neighbourhood Weekender in May.
Watch the “A Question of You” lyric video below.
Lil Wayne won’t be playing the Super Bowl halftime show at this year’s game in his hometown, but Weezy will be one of the headliners (with the Roots) of the 2025 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. The iconic event that will host more than 5,000 acts on 14 stages from April 24-May 4 on the Fair Grounds Race Course announced this year’s lineup on Wednesday (Jan. 15), which will also feature headliners Pearl Jam, the Dave Matthews Band, Luke Combs, Lenny Kravitz and Kacey Musgraves.
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Other acts booked for this year’s predictably eclectic edition include: Santana, John Fogerty, Burna Boy, HAIM, Cage the Elephant, Laufey, Bryson Tiller, Harry Connick, Jr., Patti LaBelle, Trombone Shorty, My Morning Jacket, Gladys Knight, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, Cheap Trick, Babyface, Diana Krall, Goose, The Revivalists, Big Freedia and many more.
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Louisiana residents have the chance to snag lower prices for weekend passes and single-day tickets now, with non-resident weekend passes and VIP packages already available already and single-day tickets slated to go on sale at a later date; fans need to set up an account with AXS.com to purchase tickets, with more information available here.
Among the other acts slated to take the stage this year are: Banda MS, Irma Thomas, Tank and the Bangas, Branford Marsalis, Kamasi Washington, The Wailers with Julian Marley, Ledisi Sings Nina, PJ Morton, Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Maze Honoring Frankie Beverly, James Bay, Margo Price, Rickie Lee Jones, Seun Kuti & Egypt 80, Morris Day and the Time and others.
Check out the full lineup below.
Pete Parada, the former drummer of The Offspring, has detailed the controversial circumstances surrounding his dismissal from the band in 2021.
Speaking on the Try That In A Small Town podcast, Parada recounted the events that led to his exit, citing medical advice and a turbulent interaction with the band’s management as key factors. Parada, who joined The Offspring in 2007, shared that his decision not to get vaccinated against COVID-19 was based on medical guidance.
Claiming he previously suffered from Guillain-Barré syndrome—a rare neurological disorder—his doctor advised against the vaccine due to potential risks. Despite presenting this exemption, Parada claimed it was dismissed outright by the band’s newly appointed manager.
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“He was new with the band. He’d only been with them since Covid hit. So I didn’t have a lot of history with this guy,” Parada said. “He chose to come at me like a flamethrower. I’ve gotten crappy phone calls before, this was the most abusive and threatening call I’ve ever had in my entire career.”
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“He made it clear that I was either to get vaccinated or I’d be replaced,” he added. “The phone call was so shocking.”
Parada revealed that he reached out to his long-time bandmates to voice concerns about the manager’s behavior, but his attempts were met with indifference.
“I tried to talk to them about him and I said, ‘You might fire me over this but you should know, this guy is not representing you well and if he’s treating me like this, he’s treating your crew even worse’”, he claimed. “I was told, ‘That’s not the concern right now, he’s not the concern, your refusal to do this is the concern.’”
Communication broke down soon after, Parada claimed, adding that he realized he had been replaced when his flight to a rehearsal was unexpectedly canceled. “That’s how I found out,” he said.
At the time, The Offspring was gearing up to promote their tenth studio album, Let the Bad Times Roll, released in April 2021, which hit No. 1 on Billboard’s Alternative Albums Chart and No. 27 on the Billboard 200.
The band has yet to publicly address Parada’s recent comments, and they are currently preparing for their Supercharged Worldwide in ’25 tour in support of their 11th studio album, Supercharged., released in October. The album reached No.1 on the Rock & Alternative Airplay chart, while the lead single “Make It All Right” reached No. 1. reached No. 1 on both the Alternative Airplay and Active Rock charts. The band have since released “Light It Up”, as well as “Come To Brazil”.
The Offspring: Supercharged Worldwide in ’25 Australian tour will kick off on Sunday, May 4 in Adelaide, heading onto Melbourne and Sydney, and closing out on Wednesday, May 14 in Brisbane.
In a statement before its release, Dexter Holland revealed that Supercharged was recorded in Maui, Vancouver and the group’s home studio in Huntington Beach with legendary producer Bob Rock (Metallica, Bon Jovi). “I feel like this is the best we have ever sounded! We’ve been rocking out and headbanging to it for months! And we can’t wait for you guys to hear it!” he said.
Skillet’s John Cooper has a good sense of humor about some of the hard lessons he’s learned about the music business in nearly three decades as a musician. The outspoken, gregarious singer, fresh off the release of a new album (Revolution) and a European tour, laughs heartily when asked what lessons he wish he learned early his career.
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“I would go back to my younger self and say, ‘They call it the music business for a reason,” he tells Billboard’s Behind the Setlist podcast. “That part — ‘business’ — actually matters. Because when you first start — I mean, I don’t know if everybody’s like this, but I certainly was like, ‘No, no, it’s not a business, it’s art. It’s no business involved. It’s just what I want to sing about. It’s all about me and my feelings and my artwork, and I’m never gonna let anybody bastardize my art.’ And you just end up making a bunch of dumb decisions because you don’t realize that, yes, it is about art, but you still got to pay bills. And you’re in the van in the middle of the night — if anybody’s in a band out there, they’re going to know what I’m talking about — you’re driving the van, and all of a sudden you feel something. You look out the side as you’re driving and you see one of the wheels from the trailer going past you [and] it flies off in the middle of the night. And I’m sitting there going, ‘I don’t care. It’s all about my art.’ That’s not real! You’ve got to pay for that, man!”
It took Cooper a few years to realize he needed to be more hands-on and not expect others to handle his business the way he wants. “If you want it done right, you have to get involved,” he insists. “That’s not to say [my manager and business manager] didn’t do their job, but they’re never going to do it the way you want it done. And it’s easy to complain about it, but just get your hands dirty.”
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The need to be more involved in the business side of his career “really hit home” early in Cooper’s career when the person preparing his taxes asked to see his taxes for the band’s first four years. “And I said, ‘Well, we lost money for the first four years, so I didn’t turn them in,’” Cooper recalls. “He’s like, ‘Well, you’re gonna pay for that now. You’ve gotta pay a fee for not doing it right.’ And so I would go back and just say [to my younger self], ‘Hey, yes, it’s about the art, but you can’t be a moron. You’ve got to grow up.’”
Over time, Cooper has learned the business side of music from a variety of people, including a manager that arrived six years into his career and his business manager. He also took inspiration from Mötley Crüe bass player Nikki Sixx, who Cooper says “understood it’s about art, but you got to take care of your business. You want to be around for 30 years? You better get it in gear, son!”
The lessons Cooper learned will help now that Skillet is independent and self-releasing its music. After nearly two decades with Atlantic Records — 99% of which was positive, Cooper says — the band released Revolution on its own Hear It Loud imprint. While Atlantic Records helped Skillet find mainstream success (“Awake and Alive” reached No. 1 on the Billboard Active Rock chart in 2011) there was more bureaucracy than Cooper would have preferred. “A lot of red tape,” he says. “A lot of people having to approve the songs.” Now, Skillet now has greater creative control and can release music more frequently.
“We wrote 11 songs for this record, and I loved it,” he says. “I loved making the project. It was so much fun. We wrote, recorded and released this album in 13 months. And I’ll tell you what, it was so fun, and I love the music.”
Listen to the entire interview with Skillet’s John Cooper using the embedded Spotify player below, or go to Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeart, Amazon Music, Podbean or Everand.
My Morning Jacket announced on Wednesday morning (Jan. 15) that their 10th studio album, Is, will be released via ATO Records on March 21. The group’s first new full-length LP in more than three years was produced by Grammy-winner Brendan O’Brien (Bruce Springsteen, Pearl Jam).
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The Louisville-bred group that has typically self-produced their albums in the past mostly recorded Is at Henson Recording Studios in Los Angeles with O’Brien. Lead singer/guitarist Jim James — who has produced or co-produced all of their studio albums since 1999 — explained in a statement that their interest in working with the acclaimed producer came from a “newfound willingness to open up their process and involve an outside creative force.”
“Up until now I’ve never been able to let go and allow someone else to steer the ship,” James said in the statement. “It almost felt like an out-of-body experience to step back and give control over to someone who’s far more accomplished and made so many more records than us, but in the end I was able to enjoy the process maybe more than I ever have before.”
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The first fruits of those efforts is available now via the gauzy lead single “Time Waited,” which dropped on Wednesday along with a Danny Clinch-directed video. The impressionistic clip from the photographer/director known for his work with the Foo Fighters and Pearl Jam features a mix of performance footage and floating flowers with archival photos from throughout the band’s quarter-century-plus history.
“I made a loop of that piano intro and listened as I went for a walk, and all these melodies started coming to me,” said James about the song that was inspired by a sample of a piano part the singer found on pedal steel master Buddy Emmons’ classic 1969 Emmons Guitar Inc. album.
“For a long time, I didn’t have lyrics, but then I had a dream where I was in a café and a song was playing, and the lyrics to that song became the lyrics to ‘Time Waited’ – the melodies just fit perfectly,” he added. “And the lyrics are about how flexible time is, how we can bend and warp time, especially if we are following our hearts, the universe and time itself can flow to work with us.”
“Well they say time waits for no one dear/ And it takes near death to show one, yeah/ But time waited… for you and me,” James sings over a hypnotic piano and gentle drums in the first verse before the track expands into one of the group’s patented psychedelic pop slow-burns.
According to the release, before teaming up with O’Brien for the sessions for their follow-up to 2021’s self-titled ninth album, they had recorded more than 100 demos to land on the final 10 that made the cut.
The final list includes: “Out in the Open,” “Half a Lifetime,” “Everyday Magic,” “I Can Hear Your Love,” “Time Waited,” “Beginning From the Ending,” “Lemme Know,” “Squid Ink,” “Die For It” and “River Road.”
“It feels really great to have a collection of songs we all love this much, and to know that we worked as hard as we possibly could on them,” James said. “Hopefully those songs will be helpful to people and give them some kind of peace as they try to deal with the insanity of the world – because that’s what music does for me, and doing the same for others is always my greatest dream come true.”
The band also said they will announced tour dates in support of the album soon. Before that, they will head down to Florida for the next edition of their three-night My Morning Jacket’s One Big Holiday festival at Miramar Beach’s Seascape Resort from April 3-5.
Watch the “Time Waited” video and check out the band’s album announcement below.