“When you write a song that’s really close to you or really emotional, and then you play it a bunch of times and work on it, by the time you get to recording it, I feel like it’s not as heavy anymore,” guitarist Cody Blanchard of Shannon & the Clams tells SPIN in a video […]
Lounging in her loose jumpsuit, songwriter-producer Jennifer Decilveo might be laid back in her steel chair laughing in the middle of New York City, but she’s never been more serious. “I’m not a political dick sucker,” she exclaims, her voice echoed by the skyscrapers surrounding a concrete park in Manhattan. “Going to tell you that […]
Under the moniker of Empty Streets, multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Aaron Thompson creates dramatic electronic dream pop as a conduit for his checkered emotional state. But as a respected adult-film actor with the nom de plume Small Hands, Thompson (once described by a fan as looking like “all the best parts of Benjamin Bratt and Bam Margera in […]
While there’s been no shortage of bands doing livestreams and recorded shows over the last 17 months or so due to the pandemic, it’s hard to think of anyone who has gone to quite the lengths as Saint Motel. On Wednesday (August 18), the indie icons will release One Night Only From Macedonia: ‘The Original […]
Bad Bunny is at the top of his game. In under five years, the Puerto Rican rapper has become the biggest Latin pop star on the planet. His success is transcending cultural and language barriers that can be limiting for Latin acts. He’s mainstream. After making history in December with the first all-Spanish LP to […]
When Mark Ronson was working on his namesake AppleTV+ documentary, Watch the Sound with Mark Ronson, there was no shortage of not just internationally acclaimed artists he had access to, but genre sonic pioneers willing to sit down with the super-producer and expose secrets behind some of their biggest songs. Calm, yet exceedingly curious in […]
Alex Lifeson didn’t have some grand master plan for all of this: the glossy-looking website, the big rollout of new music, the subsequent parade of interviews. But the dominos just keep tumbling, and he’s going with the flow. With the launch of his new signature Epiphone electric guitar, the Alex Lifeson Les Paul Axcess Standard, […]
There’s a staggering sentence in the bio that accompanied the sample of singer-songwriter Yola’s sophomore album, Stand For Myself. In discussing a perspective shift since the release of her 2019 Grammy-nominated debut, Walk Through Fire, she says she was persuaded from being her true self, sharing, “There was a little hiatus where I got brainwashed […]
Almost exactly two months ago, Bill Stevenson and Milo Aukerman of the Descendents joined our Twitch stream for a very special episode of our weekly rock ‘n roll interview show/therapy session, Noise Pollution. Normally, our streams stay on Twitch for the limit of two weeks and then disappear into the ether, but today, we brought […]
“I’m ready to move on to the next thing,” Bartees Strange tells SPIN. It’s a logical impulse, especially since his debut LP, 2020’s Live Forever, restlessly shuffles through genres — indie-rock, folk, emo, hip-hop, soul — like playing cards. October also wasn’t the most optimal time for a life-changing career move: With COVID-19 grinding live […]