Mötley Crüe ruled the metal scene in the late ‘80s, going on to sell over 100 million records. However, by the time Sebastian Stan was the right age to appreciate the glam band, the metal heyday had passed. “Unfortunately, I didn’t really know Mötley Crüe when I was growing up,” Stan says, “because when I […]
Being the lead singer of a strident rock band has virtues both public and personal. In his role as frontman for the perpetually influential post-punk unit Gang of Four, Jon King has generated his share of both intellectual napalm and rock history bona fides. But he seems positively giddy about his band’s latest acknowledgment. “Well, […]
It’s taken nearly two decades, but Band of Horses frontman Ben Bridwell finally feels he has the capacity — and the Goddamn right — to follow his creative intuition. “Hopefully during this maturity process, I’ve learned to exert my own right in the band to say, ‘This is what the fuck we’re doing,’” Bridwell says […]
Given a few beats to think it over, Erin Rae — whose enchanting second solo album, Lighten Up is out now — concludes that she is, in fact, a happy person. Based on her lilting voice and the gentle smile on her new record’s cover, it seems easy to accept that at face value. Folky […]
“We’re all doing the best we can,” says Bridget Everett. A mantra of many, especially throughout the past two years, but particularly relevant for the cabaret singer/comedian/actress’ HBO comedy Somebody Somewhere. The series follows Kansan Sam (Everett, who was born in Manhattan, Kansas), who returns to her hometown and struggles to fit in while grappling […]
When Tom Ogden began writing what would become Blossoms‘ fourth studio album, he was communicating through a character — one he dubbed “the writer.” The lead singer and guitarist was driven by a narrative that wasn’t necessarily centered around him — or so he thought. But it wasn’t long until Ogden had a realization: the […]
Ever since she broke on to the scene nearly 20 years ago, life for Avril Lavigne has been, well, complicated. Lavigne went from teenage pop-punk sensation to bonafide pop star to shifting away from the bright lights of Hollywood to focus on herself. She appeared in movies, launched a clothing line, formed a charity and […]
The “triple lindy” is a physics-defying dive composed of multiple flips completed between several diving boards. Rodney Dangerfield, comically unfit and forever disrespected, “completes” it (with stunt-double assistance and cutaways) in the 1986 comedy Back to School. Unlike Dangerfield, Sndtrak has garnered seemingly ubiquitous respect for his neck-breaking, jaw-dropping flips of familiar samples. Madlib, 9th […]
Every member of Korn tells me, individually, that they wanted to “think outside the box” for the rollout of their 14th album Requiem – in those exact words. To their credit, they know that a band nearly 30 years into their career merely saying “we wanted to think about the box” sounds like they’re checking […]
In February 2020, Sasami Ashworth packed her acoustic guitar and headed to a songwriter’s retreat in Washington state. The classically-trained musician thought she would return with Joni Mitchell-esque material. The night before the retreat, however, Ashworth found herself in a Los Angeles dive bar where sludge metal band Barishi was performing. As the cymbals and […]