RECENT ARTICLES

The strands and building blocks that comprise the DNA of any given songwriter can involve just about anything. Perhaps it’s nostalgia and affection, or sincerity and abundance, or superheroes and daydreams. For John Darnielle, founder and principal songwriter for the indie rock band The Mountain Goats, it starts primarily with literature and camaraderie, though a dash of late-night TV and movies are sprinkled in healthily, as well. Such is the stuff that comprises Darnielle’s career with the group he founded some three decades and twenty-plus albums ago. More recently, the musician-turned-best-selling novelist has given his attention to a new LP—Bleed Out, which is set to drop on Friday (August 19)—one he wrote quickly, he says, but that boasts some of his best material to date. For Darnielle, that’s the beauty of creativity and, more specifically, of music. It’s versatility. It’s a language unto itself that offers even much more than that. It’s emotive and lush, fulfilling and inspiring. It’s who he is, which has been the case since his first record player at five years old.

Read More

There are many factors that can contribute to a lifetime of music. For the Oahu, Hawaii-born, Grammy-nominated songwriter and performer Jack Johnson, those factors were initially comprised of an old ukulele, Black Sabbath and Jimi Hendrix. Johnson, who released his latest LP, Meet the Moonlight, on June 24, says he can remember way back to strumming the traditional Hawaiian stringed instrument as a kid. His parents had one around the house. But he also had older brothers, who would pass them their old vinyl albums when they were done with them. Black Sabbath was prized among them, but others included KISS and Queen.

He remembers staring at the album art, playing them on a little plastic record player he had at the time. Later, he bought a Hendrix cassette tape, the first album he purchased with his own money, which he earned from working at a pizza place, he says. He was lucky, found it at a “trippy hippy shop” that sold crystals. He recalls buying moonstone earrings for a girl there for her birthday. He played the cassette out in a waterproof yellow Walkman. He moved next to Fugazi, which he heard on the radio. Hearing that band made him want to form his own.

Read More

Dan Reynolds, frontman for the uber-successful band Imagine Dragons, is fully aware that time is fleeting. While some may hang their proverbial hats on the fact they’ve sold tens of millions of albums, filled venues like Madison Square Garden in New York City, or worked with big names like Kendrick Lamar and Rick Rubin, Reynolds instead keeps his eyes and mind looking largely forward.

The day after selling out a place like MSG, he says, he doesn’t grin from ear-to-ear in rest. Instead, it’s onto the next task. The morning after such an event, he wants to write the next great song. Reynolds, who has accumulated billions upon billions of song streams, released his latest collection of songs with his anthemic band earlier this month. Billed as a double album, Mercury—Act 2 dropped on July 1 while its sister LP, Mercury—Act 1 released in September 2021. Both are twined by thoughts and the effects that death has had on Reynolds and his surrounding family and friends. Yes, time is fleeting. Always.

Read More

Kevin Barnes, aka the frontperson for the popular indie band of Montreal, likes when things are unpredictable. For Barnes, life can be too mundane too often. So, their ears perk up when a song, conversation, or some other form of interaction is different, fresh, or even odd. That’s when Barnes tends to thrive. It’s the foundation for the artist’s long career, which includes collaborations with Solange, Janelle Monae, and Talking Heads, along with appearances on late night shows, at big festivals, and more.

To date, of Montreal has released 18 albums, the latest of which is Freewave Lucifer F<ck F^ck F>ck, a seven-song record born of the isolation stemming from the recent COVID-19 lockdown, which raises eyebrows as much as it sets the listener off-kilter with sonic angles and crunches. It’s a delightful album meant to break up internal pain and the predictable pop on today’s Top 40.

Read More

Taylor Goldsmith, frontman for the standout Americana group Dawes, used to work a day job, complete with headset and earpiece, manning a desk at an insurance company dealing with contractors and hot water heaters and the like. It’s the type of position that seems both miles away from where he is and what he’s doing today, and at the same time, not too far off that Goldsmith has forgotten about it. Today, Goldsmith fronts the popular band, which has played coveted Late Night shows and placed their songs in popular television shows like American Dad. He’s also married now to a former pop star and current television star, Mandy Moore, and the two have children together, with one on the way. For Goldsmith, though, the desk job and the accompanying creative vacuum it can create in an artist’s life is never too far to forget. In that sense, it remains for him a motivating factor, one that keeps him working hard despite his successes and one that helped birth the creation of Dawes’ latest record, Misadventures Of Doomscroller, which is set to drop on July 22.

Read More

Perhaps the scariest thing about being an artist is staring at the blank page. It can feel good—wonderous—to create. But to do so, one must have something to get down on paper, literally or proverbially speaking. For writers, that blinking cursor is a foe. For painters, the blank canvas. For musicians, it’s silence or a lyric sheet without words or notes. But for acclaimed songwriter and performer Ben Harper, the only way around this worry is to never stop writing.

Harper, who will release his next LP, Bloodline Maintenance, on July 22, writing constantly is the only way to combat the looming worry of never being able to write again. A river can’t dry up if it’s constantly flowing, right? Similarly, Harper has something to say. It’s not just language he puts down on paper but meaning. So, just as his creativity won’t dry up if he’s constantly at it, so too, his efforts at making statements won’t either. This is evidenced in his new album, a stunning work that elucidates much of the Black American experience, as well as Harper’s own personal journey.

Read More

When Robin Campbell, guitarist for the legendary reggae band UB40, was growing up in the city of Birmingham, U.K., music was everywhere. He was “born into it,” he says. His father was a “reasonably successful” folk musician with a band and his own club to play in. Campbell remembers sitting on the floor as a kid, listening to his pops and his band rehearsing in their home, too. Other musicians would play his father’s club, also in Birmingham, and then stay the night at the Campbell’s.

Meanwhile, all around, in the ether practically, Campbell would hear ska and reggae music emanating from the windows of homes. There were a lot of immigrants living in the neighborhood, he says, and Jamaican music would fill the space between the residences. Of course, English pop music from the ’60s and Motown would mix in, too. But Campbell loved reggae and so did his friends and family, many of which would go on to form UB40. Ever since, the band, which is set for a new U.S. tour this summer (from August 18-September 18), went on to sell 100 million records, earn Grammy Awards and leave an imprint on music forever.

Read More

Few performers in the history of Hollywood have experienced careers with the length and breadth of Corey Feldman’s. The well-known celebrity began doing commercials at the age of three, including for McDonald’s. Later, he became a child star with movies like The Lost Boys, The Goonies, and Stand By Me. He voiced Donatello in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie. He was a teen idol, gracing the covers of many magazines. And he was famously friends with Michael Jackson. But that doesn’t mean his life was glitzy and glorious all the time—in fact, far from it.

Now, though, he’s beginning a new chapter. He has a mantra: Discover, recover and discard. He talks about giving things up to God. And underscoring all that work is Feldman’s reprieved role as a songwriter. Lately, he’s released several new singles, shared plans for a new six-disc box set and has announced a 20-plus-stop tour, spanning August through September. For someone who’s lived a tumultuous life with high highs and low lows, Feldman is poised for what’s ahead of him. But all of that begins with his very first love: music.

Read More

When Beyoncé calls, it’s safe to say the future is likely going to be different. New Orleans-born songwriter and performer Big Freedia knows that twice over. The emcee known for her Bounce prowess was featured by Queen B in the hit single “Formation” in 2016 and in Beyoncé’s latest single “Break My Soul,” which dropped last month. The achievements have bolstered Freedia’s visibility, both as an artist and as an ambassador for causes from LQBTQ+ concerns to her latest as the face of Independent Venue Week, which is slated this year from July 11-17.

For Freedia, whose latest solo releases include the EP Louder in March 2020 and Big Diva Energy in September 2021, the commercial appeal is important. For years, she was an underground artist in New Orleans, working from club to club. Now, she’s a bright star, whose lumens are only getting more and more pronounced and iridescent.

Read More

Language is a form of technology. The elements that make music are, too. These truths are both the precursors and underlying foundations for the latest work from poet-actor-musician Saul Williams, who, with Rwandan actress and playwright Anisia Uzeyman, has created a new film and accompanying soundtrack that juxtaposes ideas of liberation, technology, and traditional African languages and sonics, which then, in turn, offers a mind-bending window into how work gets done. The film is called Neptune Frost and the soundtrack is called Unanimous Goldmine: Original Soundtrack to Neptune Frost. The former dropped last year, and the latter was released on July 1. But the origins of the work go back to Williams’ childhood, a time when, around 1980, he first began to learn about songs, stage plays, and Shakespeare. The son of artists, Williams was supported when he expressed his interest in creativity as a possible profession. Little did he know then that his Magnum Opus would find the world some 40 years later. Now, it has.

Read More

For Ketch Secor, the longtime frontman for the old-time music collective Old Crow Medicine Show, to write songs is to walk with the gods. While it may be physically impossible to sit down and write a song with past legends like Merle Haggard or Ray Charles or even, to work with living legends like Bob Dylan or Dolly Parton, it’s possible for songwriters to somehow musically and creatively tread in the same metaphysical waters. For Secor, it’s as close as you can get to sitting in the parlor with these giants. That was true when he wrote Old Crow’s 2004 hit, “Wagon Wheel,” which he credits Dylan with co-writing (Dylan recorded the chorus in 1973 that Secor later built the song from), and it’s true for the latest Old Crow album, Paint This Town, which the group released on April 22. For Secor, to do the work is celestial, and the only way to live.

Read More

Songwriter, comedian, actor, and all-around creative person Tim Heidecker cares most about process. The products of his work are secondary. Yes, they are what’s consumed by the audience and how he and his like-minded colleagues support themselves. But more than those aspects, Heidecker cares about the moments when he’s elbow-deep in the work.

He says the phrase “Don’t look back” is something of a guiding light. But that mantra can’t always be the reality, given Heidecker’s most recent work, his forthcoming new LP, High School, which he’s set to release on Friday (June 24). He’s not one to examine his past body of work, he doesn’t want to get tripped up on it. Instead, he’s willing to mine his past for new work, as he looks ahead down creative roads. So, while his new album is of the past, it’s also a part of his future and may, in the end, even portend what Heidecker will do next, artistically.

Read More

For Tarriona “Tank” Ball, frontwoman for the Grammy-nominated band Tank and the Bangas, everything began when she stole a glance at her older sister’s private diary. The two shared a bedroom growing up, so when Tank had the chance, at 11 years old, she peered through the handwritten pages. In them, she found stories, poetic lines, and general expressions that sparked her imagination. She wanted to do that, too—write. Today, Tank can still remember some of the lines. It was those diary entries that would inspire Tank to write her poetry, which then took her to the New Orleans open mics where she would meet her future bandmates. And on May 13, Tank and the Bangas unveiled their latest studio LP, Red Balloon, which showcases the group’s lush sonic chemistry and Tank’s knack for poignant lyricism.

Read More

Lyle Lovett remembers the kindness of his early music teachers.

Songs entered his life especially early; truly, he can’t remember a day without them. He’d watch television shows growing up in Houston, Texas that hosted performers, and dancers. Lovett had his own record player and records, listening to them even before he was school-aged. He sang in church. In second grade, his mother asked if he’d like guitar lessons and he said yes without a thought. That’s when he met Charles Woods, his guitar teacher, who never made him feel bad if he didn’t practice on a given week, who let him learn the songs he liked and essentially create his own curriculum—the Beatles, the Monkeys, Buck Owens, Hank Williams. He learned the C chord and the G chord. He struggled with F and barre chords. He read music and played duets in class with Woods. It’s the kind of foundation that makes for a long love affair with the art form and can even, if one is lucky, create a career. Today, the well-accomplished, award-winning Lovett, who has been playing for decades now, is headed out on tour and is celebrating his latest LP release, 12th of June, which dropped in May.

Read More