“Just so you know, this is our first group interview in two-plus years,” PUP lead singer Stefan Babcock says somewhat trepidatiously, as we situate ourselves in the various corners of their downtown Toronto rehearsal space. I’ve set up my phone to record voice memos, hanging carefully on a steel I-beam overhead, with the microphone aiming […]
Duran Duran took the world by storm in the 1980s, but 2022 is shaping up to be a year to remember for the Birmingham band. In February, they netted their first nomination for The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and released a deluxe edition of their excellent 2021 album, Future Past, featuring a new […]
For Johnny Marr, one moment crystalizes his brief tenure with Modest Mouse. It was 2006, and the British guitarist, long revered for co-founding the Smiths, now found himself in a situation unsuited for rock royalty: sweating in the hot, crowded Portland attic of Mouse leader Isaac Brock. “There was literally a time [while playing ‘Invisible’], […]
We live in an era of premature anniversaries and nostalgia-fueled hagiography. But Cypress Hill deserves every glowing retrospective. B-Real, Sen Dog and DJ Muggs have licked shots at pigs, rivals, and the DEA for 30 years. They’ve earned the right to reminisce, to remind you to genuflect before you enter the Temples of Boom or […]
When it comes to Josh Klinghoffer’s musical output, it helps to have Google and Wikipedia handy to keep track of his voluminous work on dozens of projects by everyone from PJ Harvey and Gnarls Barkley to his own bands Dot Hacker and Pluralone. Of course, the 42-year-old Los Angeles native is best known for his […]
So, here’s the thing. Whether you know it or not, a lot of musicians work at music publications. And ours is no exception. This week, our creative director Danny Klein and his “ultimate creative manifestation” as he likes to call it, Robot Sunrise, is heading down to SXSW to close our main stage lineup on […]
On the surface, Drug Church is just another hardcore punk band. They play fast and loud. Vocalist Patrick Kindlon often sounds angry. It’s the kind of music your grandma would probably hate. But underneath their aggressive facade, the Albany quintet’s catchy melodies and dark humorous takes on current societal and cultural issues make their tunes […]
“Band practice has always felt the same,” swears guitarist/vocalist Wade MacNeil about reconvening with his colleagues in post-hardcore aggregate Alexisonfire. “We’re just trying to make something that feels like us.” After going on hiatus in 2012, reuniting for a tour in 2015 and writing, recording and releasing three new songs, the quintet spent their pandemic […]
It took Anaïs Mitchell roughly a decade to create her Tony and Grammy award-winning Broadway phenomenon Hadestown – a retelling of a Greek myth set in The Netherworld. And with that, she became just the fourth woman to compose the music, lyrics and book of a Broadway musical (which then ran for 16 years). Now, […]
Young Guv’s Ben Cook briefly sums up the year he and his band spent in Taos, New Mexico, writing, hiking, cooking and experiencing the paranormal. “There’s just a lot of weird shit out there,” he says. Cook, the nucleus of the power-pop band, along with most of his live touring outfit and co-writers and producers, […]