Latest news with #soloalbum
Forbes
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Saturday Conversation: Michael Clifford On Finding His Own Voice
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - JULY 16: Michael Clifford speaks onstage at The Drop: Michael Clifford at ... More GRAMMY Museum L.A. Live on July 16, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo byfor The Recording Academy) The Michael Clifford you got to know in the multi-platinum Australian band 5 Seconds of Summer has grown up on his solo debut, Sidequest. A husband and a father now, Clifford tackles all that comes with those responsibilities – the love of being a dad, the vulnerability, the questions and more. The result is an honest, but musically playful look at the good, bad and scary of growing up. I spoke with Clifford at length about the album, finding his own voice as a solo artist and much more. Steve Batin: I wanted to get your perception on this. I've talked about this with so many artists. As soon as you have a kid, it doesn't matter what happened in your life before that. None of it matters because you realize it's just all about them; protecting them, making them happy and most important what they think about you. Michael Clifford: Dude, it really changed my whole outlook. Also, there's something interesting that I've found, once you have a kid, I'm like, 'Man, everything else is easy. I can do anything because being a parent is the hardest and most fulfilling thing that you can do.' So, it is definitely interesting because anything else can come my way. And I'm like, 'Yeah, it just pales in comparison to the emotion and feeling of a kid.' Baltin: Yeah, Serj Tankian is a friend, and he put it to me this way: as soon as you have a kid, everything you've ever thought you've known about being in love forget it because it all changes. You'll never love anything as much as you love your kid. Clifford: You also have to rest in peace the old version of you that you had before you were a parent, which is super interesting to me and coincidentally falls in line with this album that I've made. I made a lot of the music before being a dad and then after being a dad I had to go back and re-approach everything again. Not because I wanted to make a record about being a dad, there's maybe one song that is about that on my album. But I wanted to just approach it with a new perspective of where I was at in life now and it's a totally different place than where I was and it helped me embrace something more childlike in myself that I feel like I've been trying to force myself to grow up or something. It almost did the opposite to me, it's doing the most adult thing that I could ever do in my life I was like, 'Wait a second, that's my place for that, but everything else, like in music, I need it to be just as fun and full of that childlike wonder as I can tap into.' 03:08 Baltin: James Bay was also saying he made his last album before he had a kid. And then he went back and realized that there was stuff in there about being a dad. He didn't know he had written about it. A lot of times as an artist, because music is so subconscious, you're writing about things you're thinking without knowing they're there. So, it's interesting that you say that because I love your vulnerability on the record. When you listen now do you think the idea of being a dad was part of that? Clifford: Absolutely, I think I am a chronic overthinker. I overthink everything in my life, especially music and parenting. I'll dissect every moment and everything to see if I've done it right. So, for me, there was a ton of correlation with both of those things. And they're the two things that are the biggest parts of my life. So, yeah, a common theme in my album and just honestly, who I am as a person is can I even do this thing that I'm trying to do And other people give me confidence and make me think that I can, but maybe I just have to give it a go and with the song like 'Cool,' it was the first song that I that I said, 'Okay, this one is done and this one I can hand over and let out into the universe.' That was just such a trip because I've been delivering songs and signing off on songs in the band since I was 15, 16 years old. And now here I am. I've been doing this for 13, 14 years. And I'm struggling to even be happy with the music and feel like it's ready to be put out into the world. So, in a lot of ways, for me, this record had to go at some point. I had to let it go and have other people tell me when the thing needs to be done by, because if it was up to me, I'd just keep editing it and it'd live in a Dropbox forever. Batin: When you're with the band, you have other guys that you can bounce ideas and songs off of. When it's in your name, it's a whole different kind of pressure. Clifford: I was getting to the point where every single sound and every song I was just overthinking. There was so much where I didn't understand the concept of everything that I put out and everything that everyone hears. I was like, 'I no longer can hide behind my friends. It's me now. And everything that you hear on it has to be a representation of me and that just riffled me.' That was a big journey for me, finding out sometimes you just have to go with your gut and go with what feels right instead of what analytically in your head you can do. I was just running in circles Baltin: When you go back and listen to it now are there songs that surprise you? What Luke [Hemmings] said to me that was so interesting when we talked about his EP last year, he talked about the fact that in writing it, it was almost like coming to grips with his teenage feelings and it was like trying to protect someone that you can't protect anymore. You spent all this time as a teenager having success and you craft this image for the world. And then now as an adult, you're a dad, a husband, and there's a freedom in letting all that go and saying this is who I really am. I no longer have to protect that image. Clifford: That's interesting. That's well said for him. And I think that's been a theme for him, even when we made our fifth record, I was feeling that there was like a lot of reminiscing from Luke on the past and he was trying to find the right words to say, and I love how he put that. That was a great quote. I think going into being solo artists for all of us in the band we have this thing that we all do together. Then when we go and do our own things they're so different. And they're so uniquely us in whatever way. For me, I was just trying to find what's that for me? I don't know what that looks like for me. I don't know what that sounds like, or what words are right and represent me. Finding out that was I think the biggest part for me because ultimately, I'm not the person who sings the most in my band and I had to find out what's my voice in in this space of life. Who am I? I think finding that for me was a big theme in my record. Baltin: Who was it that you found in this? Clifford: I have no idea and what I love about what I've made is the songs are all so different and they're coming from so many different places and like ideas that I feel like this is part of who I am. I'm complicated and have a lot of parts of myself and I'm not necessarily one person. I'm a sum of all my experiences and all of these different journeys that I've taken in life. Baltin: Was there one moment that really meant a lot to you in finishing this record? Clifford: For me, having Porter Robinson, who's my number one favorite artist of all time, listen to "Kill Me For Always" and do his thing on it and believe in me, really helped me get across the finish line. His co-sign meant a lot to me.
Forbes
19-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Raekwon Dons ‘The Emperor's New Clothes' On New Album
Raekwon of Wu-Tang Clan Staten Island-bred rapper Raekwon has been a looming figure in hip-hop since the Wu-Tang Clan's debut in the early '90s. In 1995, the 'Ice Cream' rapper showed he can easily stand alone with his platinum-selling debut solo album Only Built 4 Cuban Linx… In the decades since then, Raekwon has continued to release music as a soloist and alongside his Wu-Tang Clan groupmates, though it's been a decade since the last Wu-Tang album and nearly just as long since Raekwon's previous solo effort. Now, eight years after his last album The Wild, Raekwon is back with his eighth solo LP, The Emperor's New Clothes. While the hit-making MC takes center stage on the project, he does so while being joined by other all-star rappers like Nas and fellow Wu-Tang members Ghostface Killah, Inspectah Deck, and Method Man. He balances the old with the new, as rappers who have debuted in the past decade Westside Gunn, Conway the Machine, and Benny the Butcher also hop in on the party on 'Wild Corsicans.' To bring the project to life, he recruited top-tier producers like Swizz Beatz and J.U.S.T.I.C.E. League. The album's release comes the same day as the Wu-Tang Clan performs their final show together in Philadelphia. That follows the group's last-ever joint hometown performance at Madison Square Garden on July 16. Though it might be Wu-Tang's last tour, Raekwon isn't opposed to doing another album together down the road. 'I mean, we tryna get it together, you know? Everybody's spread out. Everybody's doing something great in their life, so when it's time for everybody to get in the room, it just seems like it's the hardest s**t in the world,' he said on social media last year. 'But it ain't like we don't want to. And then you got so many minds. You throw a beat out and a n***a be like, 'I like that, I don't like that.' It's hard. It's real hard, but don't count us out. Don't never count us out.' Wu-Tang Clan takes the stage together one final time in Philadelphia on July 18.
Yahoo
15-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Jeff Tweedy Triples Up On New LP, ‘Twilight Override'
Wilco's Jeff Tweedy has rounded up 30 new songs for his latest solo album, Twilight Override, which will be spread across three different discs upon their Sept. 26 release by the band's dBpm Records. The tracks 'One Tiny Flower,' 'Out in the Dark,' 'Stray Cats in Spain' and 'Enough' are available to sample below. 'When you choose to do creative things, you align yourself with something that other people call God. And when you align yourself with creation, you inherently take a side against destruction,' Tweedy muses. 'Youʼre on the side of creation. And that does a lot to quell the impulse to destroy. Creativity eats darkness. Sort of an endless buffet these days — a bottomless basket of rock bottom. Which is, I guess, why Iʼve been making so much stuff lately. That sense of decline is hard to ignore, and it must be at least a part of the shroud Iʼm trying to unwrap. The twilight of an empire seems like a good enough jumping-off point when one is jumping into the abyss.' More from Spin: Will You Also Be Seduced By the Beta Band's 'Dry the Rain?' Korean Brit Pop 'It's Going to Be the Best Fucking Festival Experience of Your Life': How Pickathon Survives in Corporate America 'Twilight sure is a pretty word, though,' he continues. 'And the world is full of happy people in former empires, so maybe thatʼs not the only source of this dissonance. Whatever it is out there (or in there) squeezing this ennui into my day, itʼs fucking overwhelming. Itʼs difficult to ignore. Twilight Override is my effort to overwhelm it right back. Here are the songs and sounds and voices and guitars and words that are an effort to let go of some of the heaviness and up the wattage on my own light. My effort to engulf this encroaching nighttime (nightmare) of the soul.' The album was recorded and self-produced by Tweedy at Wilco's longtime Chicago studio the Loft and sports contributions from his musical children, Spencer and Sammy, plus frequent collaborators James Elkington, Sima Cunningham, Macie Stewart and Liam Kazar. The artist will preview material from it during a Substack livestream at 4pm ET today (July 15). 'Iʼm not trying to imply that I had this all mapped out as a story,' Tweedy admits. 'The way that this ended up falling together and being arranged, it does tell a story that I think I wanted to tell. Thatʼs what a process does for me. This is why it sounded right to me in this order, aside from tempos and music.' Tweedy will support Twilight Override with an extensive fall solo tour, beginning Oct. 8 in Three Oaks, Mi. Beforehand, he'll play July 27 at the Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island. Wilco is also on the road through late August, including several dates as part of the Bob Dylan/Willie Nelson co-headlined Outlaw Music Festival. In related news, Wilco members John Stirratt and Pat Sansone have reactivated their Autumn Defense side project for their first album since 2014. Here and Nowhere will be released Oct. 10 by Yep Roc and will be supported by a nine-date fall tour, starting Oct. 24 in Vienna, Va. Disc 11. One Tiny Flower2. Caught Up in the Past3. Parking Lot4. Forever Never Ends5. Love Is for Love6. Mirror7. Secret Door8. Betrayed9. Sign of Life10. Throwaway Lines Disc 21. KC Rain (No Wonder)2. Out in the Dark3. Better Song4. New Orleans5. Over My Head (Everything Goes)6. Western Clear Skies7. Blank Baby8. No Oneʼs Moving On9. Feel Free Disc 31. Lou Reed Was My Babysitter2. Amar Bharati3. Wedding Cake4. Stray Cats in Spain5. Ainʼt It a Shame6. Twilight Override7. Too Real8. This Is How It Ends9. Saddest Eyes10. Cry Baby Cry11. Enough To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, click here.
Forbes
30-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Benmont Tench Shines During Poignant ‘The Melancholy Season' Solo Set
Benmont Tench performs on stage at Garcia's. Thursday, May 15, 2025 in Chicago, IL Encountering Tom Petty in Gainesville, Florida for the first time at the age of just 11, Benmont Tench would become a crucial component in the sound of one of America's great songwriters, tickling the ivories on two Mudcrutch records, all 13 Heartbreakers studio albums and two of Petty's three solo projects, a run responsible for record sales exceeding 80 million globally over 45 years (one of the best selling catalogs ever). While his work as a session musician has found him appearing on songs by artists like Stevie Nicks, Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin, Johnny Cash and the Rolling Stones since 1981, it would take until 2014 for his first proper solo album You Should Be So Lucky. Following it up more than a decade later, Tench released The Melancholy Season this past March, a collection of 12 tracks which finds him plying his remarkable craft alongside guests like Taylor Goldsmith (Dawes), longtime collaborator Sara Watkins (Nickel Creek) and more, resuming a U.S. tour in support of the new album September 13, 2025 in Woodstock, New York. Performing solo on the piano last month at Garcia's, an intimate, sold out show in front of just 300 lucky fans at Chicago's warmest new venue, Tench ran through a stunning 19 song set which drew from both solo albums, the vaunted Petty canon and well-chosen covers from artists ranging anywhere from the Grateful Dead to Joy Division. Benmont Tench performs on stage at Garcia's. Thursday, May 15, 2025 in Chicago, IL Opening up with 'The One That Got Away,' Tench shifted to a more contemplative tone with 'Today I Took Your Picture Down,' maintaining that vibe as he slowed down Joy Division's 'Love Will Tear Us Apart,' working up an uncharacteristically sparse take on the otherwise synth-driven post-punk number while placing the focus on the moving words at the heart of the haunting track. In the studio, Tench took on the lead vocal to the piano-driven 'Welcome to Hell' on the second Mudcrutch album, delivering it with a bit of a ragtime vibe on stage in Chicago. 'What the hell, a couple of covers,' said Tench with a smile. 'I like this guy. He was a good songwriter,' he continued dryly with a wink and a nod, setting up a solo take on Petty's 'Straight Into Darkness,' from 1982's Long After Dark. 'Good song, right?' quipped Tench at the deep cut's conclusion. 'The great American songwriters… This one's from St. Louis,' he explained, referencing Chuck Berry following his take on the Dead's 'China Doll.' 'It was recorded down the street,' Tench continued, referencing 1959 and '60 sessions which took place about three miles south at Chess Records for Berry's 'Bye Bye Johnny,' a sequel of sorts to 'Johnny B. Goode.' 'I wish that's how I played the piano,' he mused, shouting out the playing of Berry sidemen like Johnnie Johnson and Lafayette Leake. 'Damn.' Benmont Tench performs on stage at Garcia's. Thursday, May 15, 2025 in Chicago, IL Continuing with the covers, Bob Dylan's 'Blind Willie McTell' stood out as a highlight on stage at Garcia's, with Tench tearing through it unabated despite kicking over a bottle of water. Midway through the tour, Tench shook up the setlist, explaining the process behind 'Wobbles,' which grew from an instrumental in 2014 to a song with lyrics on the new album, steering deftly into 'You Should Be So Lucky.' Tench, 71, has battled cancer for nearly fifteen years. On stage in Chicago, he explained to fans that he recently had part of his tongue removed, persevering despite the vocal hurdles that process has brought. 'I said I'm tongue tied and I am. A funny thing happened on the way to Chicago,' Tench began. 'I've had this since 2011 and it really hadn't gotten in my way,' he continued. 'So, I go in and they take out my jaw. And they take out a little bit more of my tongue. And they rebuild half of my jaw. Damn. Bob's your uncle!' joked Tench despite the circumstances. 'Then they hit me with radiation - and they zapped the hell out of me. But I'm here! And sometimes it hurts. But I'm here,' said the pianist. 'So, that's what happened on the way to Chicago.' Benmont Tench performs on stage at Garcia's. Thursday, May 15, 2025 in Chicago, IL Growing chattier, and seemingly more comfortable as the show continued, Tench offered up a poignant message as the Garcia's set headed toward its final moments. 'This song is about not hating people - even if they're hateful,' he said, explaining the message behind 'I Will Not Follow You Down' from The Melancholy Season. 'Save your tears. You're gonna need them,' sang Tench during the new song's anthemic chorus, one of the evening's standout moments. Cruising toward close with The Velvet Underground's 'Rock & Roll,' Tench emerged from encore to put his spin on one of Petty's most cherished recorded moments. By slowing it down, Tench shined a spotlight directly on the narrative that drives 'American Girl,' putting forth a stirring, unexpectedly beautiful rendition of arguably Petty's most recognizable songwriting. 'I love this city - you all should know that by now,' said Benmont Tench on stage in Chicago. 'Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Thank you so much.'
Daily Mail
13-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Aussie rocker breaks silence over band break-up rumours: 'This question is coming up a lot'
After weeks of whispers and mounting panic, Calum Hood has finally broken his silence— emphatically denying that pop-rock sensation 5 Seconds of Summer is on the brink of collapse. The usually reserved bassist, 28, who will drop his first solo album this week, jetted back to Sydney for the big reveal. Calum, who toured the globe with 5SOS for 14 years, performed an intimate debut set at Pleasure Club in Newtown on Thursday for Nova's Red Room. He is the fourth and final member of the Aussie boy band to unveil a solo project, and said he understood the raft of solo releases had set alarm bells ringing for fans. It is practically unheard of for so many members of a chart-topping band to pursue solo careers while the group is still together. From A-list scandals and red carpet mishaps to exclusive pictures and viral moments, subscribe to the DailyMail's new showbiz newsletter to stay in the loop. But Calum insists the Aussie hitmakers are not only sticking together, they're 'quite thriving.' 'Emphatically, 5SOS is not over and actually, quite thriving,' he said. 'This might be a bit weird to people but we revel in doing things people think we shouldn't do.' He admitted that bandmates Luke Hemmings, Ashton Irwin, and Michael Clifford — who have all released solo material since 2020 — had provided a 'good blueprint' for his own foray into the solo spotlight. Clifford released his debut solo single in April ahead of the release of his album Sidequest next month, while both Hemmings and Irwin have dropped two records each since 2020. Calum's solo effort, a synth-heavy, atmospheric collection of tracks, took over two years to create as he grappled with the all-too-common artist anxiety. 'You know me, I'm an anxious boy anyway, but I never had that with the band; I was never anxious about releasing 5SOS songs,' he confessed. His new tunes are pure 'sad boy' vibes, exploring heartbreak and the brutal reality of distance on relationships when you're constantly touring. Calum Hood has played several solo gigs to promote his solo album release but said that his full-time gig with 5SOS is calling him back One track, Dark Circles, even delves into the 'fantasy' of a world without 5SOS. 'Obviously it's a question that's coming up a lot with all these solo things happening. Is the band OK?' Calum pondered, before quickly reassuring fans: 'The answer is the band is great, but (for that song) it was on my mind that if sh*t hit the fan, it would be devastating for me. I've spent half my life in the band, it has shaped who I am.' 'There's a big joke amongst the fans that "Oh, he's actually talking", which is really funny.' 'In the band, I guess I'm the more reserved one but I actually have a f***ing lot to say!' While Calum has played several solo gigs to promote his album release, he warned fans not to expect a solo world tour anytime soon. He hinted that his full-time gig with 5SOS is calling him back. 'It was such a big deal for me just to release this music,' Calum said. 'When there is another record, if there's space and the time allows and it feels good, then we will see what happens about touring.'
