Girl In Red joins host Brad Steiner for an Audacy Check In to discuss her brand new sophomore album, I'M DOING IT AGAIN, BABY!, available everywhere April 12. Girl In Red's 10-track follow-up to her 2021 debut is out now, featuring the previously released singles "Too Much," "I'm Back," "You Need Me Now?," with Sabrina Carpenter, and plenty more. Norwegian-born singer, songwriter, and producer, Marie Ulven Ringheim, better known as Girl In Red, sat down with host Brad Steiner at the Hard Rock Hotel New York to get into details about how the new record came together, what she's got planned for fans on her upcoming supporting tour, and more. In the past and documented on her first release, 2020’s If I Could Make It Go Quiet, Marie has admitted to not being the best when it comes to the dating scene, but these days she says she has a girlfriend now, “So I’m good. I’m set for life.” Now happily “in love,” this second album she says reflects how “I know everything I'm doing… I'm so professional.” Looking back on the track “hornylovesickmess” from her debut release, where Marie sings about feeling weird about how things have changed in her life, she says, in all honesty, “probably not that much,” really changed. “I was probably hyping myself up way too much in that song. But, you know, in that song, I'm talking about being in Times Square and I'm looking at my face on a billboard… I feel like something similar is gonna happen in the next couple of days.” “I have a girlfriend and I have a dog. I have a car, I have an apartment, and I'm touring the world. I didn't do that before,” she says of how things have steadily progressed. Overall, Marie is ultra-excited for fans to hear the new album mainly because she believes “all the songs are really f***ing sick. That's like my most prideful moment, because I just think they're all really cool and funny, and just they all have such strong identities, in my opinion. Obviously, I'm very f***ing biased.” Reflective of her own personality, fans can expect the new release to be just as eclectic as her debut, only this time she’s spelling it with all caps. “I think I've kind of regained some of my confidence the last couple of months, maybe the last year and a half, going into my twenties,” Marie says. After finding quite a bit of success with her first record, she admits, “I definitely lost a lot of my self-esteem. I was like, ‘Damn, I f***ing suck. I'm unlovable. I hate myself.’ I was in a really bad place and now that I have a girlfriend and I have physical proof that I'm not unlovable. Also, I've managed to find my way back to that playful self-esteem that I had when I was a teenager because you kind of lose that when you get older and you start seeing that you're not special and nobody gives a f*** and the world is ending.” “I think that's kind of where I found the confidence with all these capital letters,” she explains. "‘I’M DOING IT AGAIN, BABY!’ is kind of like I found my confidence again, I found my self-esteem, and I realized nothing f***ing matters. So let's f****ing go!” Getting to that happier place “takes a lot of time, and it takes a lot of hard work, and it takes a lot of realizing that you have to do the work yourself. And also, my go-to thing now is saying ‘yes’ to life…  Say ‘yes’ and stop being a p***y. That's what I did because I was constantly falling for my own kind of hinders. Life is really uncomfortable. So, I'm just gonna be uncomfortable, embracing the uncomfortableness and then just saying yes to life.” Saying "yes" when Taylor Swift asks you to open for her on her world tour would certainly be one of those times. “I opened for her at the tour in four different cities. Eight shows, best eight shows of my life, especially watching her shows,” says Marie. “When you talk about the confidence and the things that give you the shot of adrenaline and confidence like that… Just pure humbleness, pure I don't know, maybe just like shock. Just getting that recognition is beyond insane. I think I was more like, ‘Wow, is this even real?’" I’M DOING IT AGAIN BABY! is available everywhere -- and tickets for Girl In Red's 2024 world tour are on sale now. Words by Joe Cingrana Interview by Brad Steiner

While it probably doesn’t seem like Glass Animals really ever escaped our ether and musical minds due to the sky-rocketing success of their song “Heat Waves,” the band did actually take a beat to make some new music, and now they’re officially back. On heals of sharing cryptic posts, making A LOT of references to what we now know to be their next album title, I LOVE YOU SO F***ING MUCH, and finally dropping their brand new single "Creatures in Heaven,” the band’s lead vocalist Dave Bayley checked in with Audacy’s Brad Steiner to chat all about it at the Hard Rock Hotel in New York. Discussing what it was like to put on the pressure of “Heat Waves” when going back into the studio, Dave admitted, “it was hard actually… It’s quite a surreal experience having that kind of song like that especially when it was, I’m gonna say the C word — COVID. We kinda watched it, we were spectators, we couldn’t go out into the world and like see it happening. We were kind of sitting in underpants at home… like just getting emails… like ‘people seem to like this song,’" which he noted was, “cool, wicked,” and “great.” “So coming back into the world,” he continued, “I think we’re all a little bit lost. And you know the natural place for us is to just hide in the studio, alone, be a little bit isolationist about it, in our underpants, yeah and that’s it. We just kept it as it always was, just sit down, focus, work on making the best thing that you can, without thinking about the past.” Wiping their social media and starting from scratch for this new era, one thing they’ve been able to do this time around is start this new musical phase with fan meet-up focus groups to introduce Glass Animals’ new sound with the lead single, "Creatures in Heaven.” At first joking that things went terribly, jesting that “someone threw up,” and that “someone flipped over a table and left the room,” and that he “got punched” and “that someone bit off my ear,” Dave then shared how things actually went down, expressing, “it was actually amazing, it was really emotional." As many artists have noted in the past, by they time we hear a song, they’ve listened to it so many times, “you get a little like immune to it.” And though “it’s really sad song, and when I wrote it I was really sad,” Dave admitted, he’d “gotten used to that feeling.” However, when “you get to the room, and you hear people listening, see people listening to it for first time, you hear that again and you feel it.” So the first one, we pushed play and I forgot how sad a song it was, everyone started crying and then I started crying and it was like ‘oh my God, this is more than I signed up for today.’” Recently sharing that every song on the album is “written for someone or the concept of someone,” Dave elaborated further that while some of them are very specifically about one person, "some are kind of more an amalgamation of people where similar thing happened.” The common thread is they’re all “very very personal.” Answering Brad’s question about if someone would be able to deduce if a song is about them, Dave conceded, “I think some people can probably work it out.” Revealing he’s feeling slightly nervous about the level of vulnerability on I LOVE YOU SO F***ING MUCH, Dave shared that while the last album was personal, "it was very much about things happened long time ago,” so there was this “level of detachment.” And with “Heat Waves,” “being such a personal song," along with “a lot of the other songs in the last record,” because of all the “positivity” and “kindness that came back from the people” it gave Glass Animals the “courage to do something, to push further,” which is “always the goal with the record.” Discussing his conceptual way of writing songs, Dave’s main goal is to do things differently, to do “something new.” Adding, “I’d hate to do something that’s been done before by someone else.” Also explaining what a peanut butter vibe is, something Brad has been wondering about for 10 years, Dave said the best way to describe it, is that childlike feeling of eating a big ole scoop of peanut butter off a spoon. He also delved into some of the bands more iconic and memorable lyrics, like “My girl eats mayonnaise / From a jar while she's getting blazed,” from “Season 2 Episode 3.” Brad asked Dave to share what he thinks will be the most unique lyric on the new album. “Oh, that’s a good question,” Dave noted, “There’s a song on the new album and the first line is  — what the H is happening? What is this? I just woke up in the trunk of a black out 99 Toyota Corolla.” Before concluding the conversation, being that they were in the Hard Rock Artist Lounge, and the Hard Rock is known for its unique collection of items. Brad inquired what would Glass Animals’ contribution be. And we can guarantee its not what you’re thinking… because it’s actually not a what, but a who. To find out, and listen to the entire interview, press play above. Words by Maia Kedem Interview by Brad Steiner

Joining us for an Audacy Check In today is Five Finger Death Punch's Zoltan Bathory, talking with host Abe Kanan about the band's brand-new single featuring DMX, their upcoming summer tour, and much more. Five Finger Death Punch's ninth studio album, AfterLife, was released back in August of 2022. and their new deluxe edition with bonus tracks, including the single "This Is The Way" featuring late rap icon DMX is out now. “We always thought he's kind of the ‘metal head’ of Hip Hop,” Zoltan says. “His delivery, the dog bark, the whole attitude… There are obviously other Hip Hop artists that I really like, but we always thought, how cool this would be to do something with him, because of that attitude. This conversation of trying to do something together has been going on for years and years, maybe 5-6 years, and for obvious and more reasons, he was not available from periods of times that we could really work with him, and then when he was available, that's in the last couple of years. It never really came to fruition because, unfortunately, he passed. However, what came out of it, since the conversation continued, we had access to some of these masters that he recorded.” “Obviously people around him, the family, the estate, the producers, everybody, his friends, is super protective about his legacy, his art, everything [that] has to do with him,” he continues. “So we had to be super respectful and we worked through the channels, got the green light to use some of these songs, some of his lyrics, and then we arranged the song… it's a true collaboration. We have our part, and then where there's a part that both DMX and Ivan [Moody] sings the same thing, and there's a part that the verses are all DMX -- and we kind of tone down the guitars there so you can really hear what he's saying. His cadence, his flow is DMX, you can't mistake it… if you know DMX, there's no mistake.” Because of publishing issues and red tape, the band was unable to include the song on AfterLife as intended, but luckily fans get to hear it “as it was meant to be” on the record’s deluxe edition, which also includes “a couple of really cool acoustic bonuses that we had,” says Zoltan. “The feedback was incredible,” he adds. “Everybody thought this is super respectful to him, the arrangement and the song, everybody loves it. Everybody thought, ‘Man, this is a hit and this might be the last thing we hear from DMX. And if it's the last thing we hear from DMX, then it's a proper track.” “That's how Hype Williams got involved too… as this was making its way within the community, we thought, ‘OK, how are we gonna do a video for this song?’ Hype did the movie ‘Belly’, and he worked on [DMX’s] music videos. He was very, very close with DMX.” After sending Williams the track, he immediately responded saying he wanted to be a part of the project. Then he told me his whole story… how close he was and he was like, ‘You don't even know what you guys are sitting on, this is huge.’” 5FDP is about to hit North American cities this summer and fall with special guests Marilyn Manson and Slaughter To Prevail. With dates fast approaching, performing the song live would be the next logical step. “The way to do this I think would be, we would have to have guests,” says Zoltan. “We would have to have guest rappers,” he says, rather than incorporating a backing track. “We’re definitely working on figuring out how and who we could install as a guest to do it together.” Looking ahead to this fall’s Aftershock festival happening October 13-16 in Sacramento, CA, where 5FDP are co-headliners amongst metal titans Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Slayer, Pantera, Disturbed, Slipknot, and Mötley Crüe, as well as an opening spot for Metallica coming up, Zoltan says it’s “crazy” to think how many people will be seeing them for the first time, some who may not even give a band named Five Finger Death Punch a fair chance. “I can tell that we're turning them,” he admits. “I can tell that especially after the show… after every show there's a jump in visitors and a jump in downloads and jump in statistics. When you bring in new people, that's what you can really see. Festivals, same thing. There are people who came to see very specific bands, right? People who are not necessarily your fans. That's your chance to pick up people or expose your music to people that either didn't give you a chance, or didn't hear before, or they read it online… You gotta have haters though, because if you don't, then you're not doing it right.” Tickets for 5FDP's Summer/Fall tour are on sale now. Don’t miss our full Audacy Check In with Five Finger Death Punch's Zoltan Bathory above -- and stay tuned for more conversations with your favorite artists on Audacy.com/live. Words by Joe Cingrana Interview by Abe Kanan

The Black Keys joined host Kevan Kenney at the Hard Rock Hotel New York, as we celebrate the release of their 2024 album Ohio Players, getting into some details and inspiration behind the release, including some of their favorite collabs. Getting straight into The Black Keys’ new album, Ohio Players, which features a number of collaborators, Dan admits, “it took us until this point to really be able to feel comfortable with ourselves, to get into a room and to be able to really collaborate. I think when we started, we were just kind of insecure, that was part of it. The other part was there was no one around us, really very few musicians that were interested in the same thing.” “Now that we got to this place,” he continues, “we reached out to a couple of people on the last album, some friends of ours, Greg Cartwright from the Oblivions, and our friend Angelo, and it went so well that we just decided to look into the Rolodex a little deeper. The first person we thought of was Beck and we invited him to the studio with us. The very first day we cut ‘This is Nowhere,’ and that just set it going… it took us 20 years to get to the point where we could really collaborate truly. This is the first time we've really dipped our toes in it… and we did those actually right before ‘Dropout Boogie’ came out… and then we went on tour. When that wrapped in the fall of 2022 we worked on the record kind of nonstop from November through June of 2023.” Oasis’ Noel Gallagher also makes an appearance on the new record, a “surreal” experience says Patrick after meeting only briefly in a small studio with very minimal equipment. “We wrote a song with him in a couple hours, and then we went back two days in a row. We end up getting three songs with him… We were writing songs from scratch with him… we could have made complete fools of ourselves and if anybody would let the world know what bozos we are, it would be Noel Gallagher.” “We've had a lot of practice [working with other artists], we just never really applied it too much to The Keys for whatever reason,” Patrick explains. “Once we started doing it, he had opened up this whole new world. Because it's an exciting thing when you bring someone into the fold, you can get, more than the sum of its parts, which I think on some of these tracks that we did with Noel [Gallagher] and Beck and Dan the Automator, and Greg Cartwright and Angelo and Lil Noid and Juicy J… I think that happened. Which is what you're looking for; which is why music is so cool, because it is a collaborative art form.” Their track with Juicy J for example stems from being “lifelong Hip Hop fans. We grew up in the era where Hip Hop was ‘top of the pops’ in America,” says Dan. “We played The Ghetto Boys at our middle school dance. I mean, it's like a part of us. And you know, we did do that ‘BlakRoc’ album with Damon Dash which was really amazing and influenced us hugely, especially going into ‘Brothers,’ which we did right after that. But over the last year, while we were making the record, I was really getting heavily into Memphis underground rap… it was only sold on cassette and it was like old school, like ‘90s… And Juicy J was a big part of that. Three Six Mafia is a big part of that, Lil Noid who Juicy J found when he was 16 was a big part of that.” Switching lanes abruptly, shock rocker Alice Cooper was also part of their latest sessions. “We made a lot of songs,” says Patrick. “We finished maybe 29 and we made a decision to hold a couple of the songs back, like that Alice Cooper song. It's called ‘Stay In Your Grave,’ we wrote it with Greg Cartwright and it's just kind of like a perfect Halloween song.” “There's a character in it who's essentially the devil,” Dan adds. “So, we're like, ‘Wow, wouldn't it be amazing if we get Alice Cooper to voice this character?’” “I think we're gonna hold it until closer to the season of the witch.” Don’t miss our full Audacy Check In with The Black Keys above -- and stay tuned for more conversations with your favorite artists on Audacy.com/live. The Black Keys’ new album, Ohio Players, featuring the previously released single "Beautiful People (Stay High)" and more, is out now via Nonesuch Records. Their upcoming North American trek will officially kick off in Tulsa, Oklahoma on September 17, with stops planned in Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Seattle, Toronto, Nashville, New York, Boston, Chicago, and more before wrapping in Detroit in early November. The Head and the Heart will join them as support on most dates. Tickets are on sale now. Words by Joe Cingrana Interview by Kevan Kenney

She’s back, she’s blonde, and she’s got a brand new single. Gearing up to drop her highly anticipated, yet to be titled, fourth studio album, Camila Cabello checked in with Audacy’s Bru to chat all about it. Just three months into the year, Camila is confident that 2024 will, “go down as one of the best years of my life.” And with the way things are looking we can’t disagree. A huge part in making that prediction become a reality, is the last year and a half Camila has spent in the studio, “making the album with El Ginjo and Jasper and Bart, my engineer.” “It's just been really, really fun, I've had the best time of my life,” Camila continued. “We had the best time making it, and now for it to start going out into the world and get some energy back from people is so cool.” Starting off her album rollout with the Playboi Carti assisted single “I LUV IT,”  Camila explained why she felt that track was the right choice to introduce this new era, “I think the energy of this whole project is very being bold and taking risks and kind of like being unpredictable and, you know, kind of just like pushing, I don't know, pushing my own boundaries and uncharted territory,” she began. “And I feel like this song is, it's like the perfect first thing because I don't feel like people expected, I don't know for me to do that. There was some confusion, there was some hatred even, but I think it's like people were like, ‘Whoa, what is this?’ And that's exactly the reaction that we wanted.” The hyperpop, furiously catchy tune, definitely sees Camila entering not only this bad girl behavior blonde babe era, but also a whole new musical vibe, and we gotta say — we love luv it. Discussing how the song is so different than anything she’s done before, both sonically and lyrically, Camila said, “A lot of my songs before, because… songwriting is so important to me and I love songwriters. You know, I've talked a lot about Taylor or Lana or whatever.” She continued, “and just like even having a hook where it's just three words repeating over and over and over again. It’s new for me and embracing that repetition and also just being influenced by a lot of Rap and Hip-Hop, just, I think made me kind of paint with different brushes.” “So, yeah, I feel like sonically lyrically, like with the music and then also just like, visually, you know, changing," she added, pointing out the obvious to Bru. “I don't think I was blonde the last time I saw you.” Admitting she went back and forth about if bleaching her hair was a “terrible mistake,” Camila is now very much on board with the decision. “I’m really like, oh no, I love this s***,” she said, “and I also feel like it's perfect for this chapter and for the music. I feel like I needed to like, shake it up a little bit.” Detailing how the track came to life, Camila shared a studio sesh story of how the songs repetitive chorus came together. “We were in Miami, and we were listening to a lot of Playboy Carti actually… We were kind of starting to dream up the track list and we were like, what would be the first song on the album?” She continued, “Jasper kind of played those four chords and I loved them… I was super inspired and I got in the booth and I started kind of trying some stuff, and the first thing was literally ‘supersonic, in your orbit…’ And I kind of did the verse and I saw the guys going crazy from outside the booth and I was looking at them and I was like, yeah, I love it, and then they were like, holy s*** that sounds so good. Because I guess the tune maybe put the note to the note without knowing it. It was like a happy accident.” Speaking of accidents, the single’s music video is filled them. Curious, Bru asked Camila if the underlying theme was self-sabotage. And while noting it was an interesting thought, Cabello did illuminate that her vision for the visual was “more kind of like this complex feeling of loving the pain of something or loving the messiness of something or loving the chaos of something, like, really kind of finding the beauty in that part of our humanity.” Also discussing some of the adrenaline boosting moments in the music video, Camila clarified that while she wasn’t drinking gasoline, but actually watered down apple juice. That wrestler really did have her in a real headlock, which she didn’t terribly mind, and she was really chased by dogs, and had to bear hug a palm tree, which she found to be scary, but an adventure. During her hiatus Camila occupied her time with “consuming art,” sharing, “I feel like it just makes me, makes you a better person even if you're not an artist. So I love seeing the latest sick films or classic films or reading amazing novels or listening to classic albums or whatever. I feel like that just makes your taste better and just makes you kind of, I don't know. I love that even for my growth as a person, but I think that does end up feeding into the music anyway.” And while music is always on the brain, Camila explained, “there’s definitely times where I'm like, I just want to go… be in nature or… watch an old Disney channel original movie with my friends… drink wine and have pizza and not do anything for artistic growth or creative growth or personal growth.” Having cleared out her feed for this latest era, Camila and Bru also went on to talk about the though process behind her social media activity. “A lot of times I post and then I'll delete or I'll be like, I don't know, I get a little messy sometimes on my social media but I don't know. I guess the vision for me is like, it's actually pretty easy because it's just the world of the album,” she revealed, going on to tease, “I wish I could say the album titled but I can’t. Sorry.” Annoying, but we get it. That being said, keeping things secret hasn’t stopped Cabello’s fans from putting on their detective hats, and sleuthing form some hidden clues. However according to Camila, while she loves “that they do that,” “they got a ways to go before they do that.” Guess we’ll just have to wait patiently as more things get revealed. Camila and Bru continued conversing, talking about things they’ve done once that they’d never do again, Camila shouted out Miami’s Pine Crest Bakery, and shared her excitement for her fans to hear more music from the album. To hear the entire conversation, press play on the interview above. Words by Maia Kedem Interview by Bru

HARDY joins host Abe Kanan for an Audacy Check In to discuss bringing his Country songwriting skills fully into the Rock realm on his upcoming album QUIT!!, his biggest career influences, and more. Coming out of the last few years of turmoil within the music industry, from tour cancelations to venue shutdowns, “That was a point in time where I was like, ‘If this is our future, this is gonna suck,'” HARDY says. “It was like something out of ‘Black Mirror,’ you know?” Now, he’s fully loaded and ready to bring his live energy to fans again, this time with an all-new Rock album in the chamber. “My next record is zero Country songs,” he tells us. “ROCKSTAR,” his latest hard-hitting single, will be included on the release, set to be out this summer he says, although no solid date has been revealed just yet. “It's kind of all over the place. I'm not even gonna lie to you, it's just a look inside of my brain attempting to write Rock songs. There's a lot of it that's like ‘ROCKSTAR,’ which is like pop-punk, if you call it that, maybe Hardcore or whatever you wanna call that. But then there's some stuff that's similar to my old record that has a Country lyric over a really sonically Rock N’ Roll song. It's the most different, and just a hodgepodge of what's inside my brain. But it's up and down, and left and right, and all over the place. I'm really excited about it. There's gonna be some features on it, but no Death Metal, nothing like that. Not yet, at least. But there's a couple of songs -- like my heaviest song is on this record. It'll be the heaviest thing I've done so far.” Starting his career writing songs for others, HARDY says he had no intentions of being an “artist,” in the traditional sense, satisfied with penning tracks for Country artists like Morgan Wallen, Florida Georgia Line, Chris Lane, and Jake Owen. “I had started writing songs for them, and so my demos started catching their ear. Essentially, one day out of the blue, [Big Loud] offered me a record deal. And I mean, I was just a straight-up songwriter and that's all I wanted to be. Anyway, I held onto it and I thought about it for a month or so, and I finally decided to go for it.” Diving into his video for “ROCKSTAR,” which includes odes to some of HARDY’s biggest Rock influences, he says he chose to ride a line between some of the more obscure and most recognizable faces of the genre. “I mean, KISS was my second concert I ever went to when I was eight years old, on the reunion tour,” he says. “That was the first ‘farewell tour.’ It was like 2000/2001,” he laughs. “The one that, you know, lasted 30 years, whatever. I'm definitely a huge fan of all the bands that we [included] and my favorite one was Limp Bizkit, because that's not one that I don't think, when you think of the most classic rock stars, I don't think Fred Durst or Wes Borland or any of those guys are right at the top of the list. But my band and I are such big Limp Bizkit fans that I had to tip a hat to them, 'cause I love them.” “When I first started singing -- I'm obviously a huge Rock N’ Roll fan -- but I didn't know that it was possible. I just did Country because I knew how to write Country songs, and I grew up Country. But I didn't know that it was possible and I kind of had to ease into that world,” HARDY says, acknowledging some artists with similar backgrounds had been steered the same way in the past. “Go back to bands in the ‘80s; It was Alabama… Even Brooks and Dunn, or like Garth [Brooks] in the ‘90s. There were guys that really leaned -- and Brantley Gilbert even more recently -- guys that really have leaned into the Rock thing. But it never full-on went Rock, but could have probably pulled it off in their own way.” “It's a great time for music man, and there's just something about, I don't know, just the availability of music and just the freedom right now,” says HARDY. “I've always said, I don't think that music has rules, and you can do whatever you want, you can sound however you want, and you can make music however you want -- and right now it's just a really, really good time for that representation of that.” With a new sound naturally comes a whole new set of fans, and HARDY tells us he’s been feeling a “constant state of gratefulness knowing how lucky I am to have this life and this job… not resisting it or resenting it at all, and living more in the lifestyle and in the headspace of, ‘Wow, this is amazing.’ Just trying to do that more and more helps kind of stabilize the crazy concept behind fame and success.” Living fully in the moment and going with the flow, he says, “kind of means you're not really thinking about what you did or what you're about to do… you're just thinking about what you're doing now. And that's very big. That's really important.” HARDY is getting ready to rock fans this summer on his upcoming QUIT!! Tour with special guests Kip Moore, Travis Denning, and more kicking off in May to celebrate his upcoming album. Named after his December single, and as he just revealed officially, his upcoming album of the same name, QUIT!!, which centers around a bar-goer in his early days writing the word on a napkin and putting it in his tip jar. "I guess sometimes holding a grudge is a good thing. Thank you for inspiring me to be great," he's said of the motivation that one word provided. “If it hasn't officially been announced -- most people have probably figured it out, but yeah,” HARDY says of his upcoming album’s title. “Again, there's some stuff that sounds like the old Rock stuff that I've done, like ‘Jack’, and even ‘Sold Out.’ I've got Cody Quistad from Wage War that's played on the record. So, he's played a lot of the really heavy breakdowns and stuff like that. There's even a couple of love songs, which I haven't really done before in the Rock world… It's got a little bit of everything. it's across the whole spectrum as far as sound, but I don't see that as a bad thing. I think that I'm just experimenting and I'm just making the music that I like to make. If it sounds cool, then let's put it on the record. It's really different. It's really cool.” Don’t miss our full Audacy Check In with HARDY above -- and stay tuned for more conversations with your favorite artists on Audacy.com/live. Words by Joe Cingrana Interview by Abe Kanan

Joining host Mike Adam today for a special Audacy Check In is the one and only Lenny Kravitz, here to discuss brand new music, his lasting musical legacy, and much more. Music and fashion icon Lenny Kravitz has just offered fans more music from his forthcoming 12th studio album --Blue Electric Light -- set for release on May 24, debuting the inspiring new single "Human" on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on March 20. Kravitz's new track was preceded by the album's lead single "TK421" back in October of 2023.  “I always wonder why they say 12,” Lenny says addressing his upcoming studio release, “because there's actually 13,” he reminds us. “But they never count the ‘Greatest Hits,’ right? Because there is one new song on that album again, which what the song was called, ‘Again.’” “Yeah, 12, 13… Whatever. It's been a minute,” he concedes. Lenny’s forthcoming album title, Blue Electric Light, fans may notice is a bit of a throwback to his early stage name, Romeo Blue. “There's a little nod in that direction for sure,” he admits. “When I started making the record, I realized after I was cutting the first maybe two tracks that it was reminiscent of what I was doing in high school, which I thought was really interesting because what I was doing in high school, I threw away, and I never went back to celebrate that time.” “I found my sound with my first album, ‘Let Love Rule,’” Kravitz continues, “and I never looked back. I think this all happened by virtue of, when the pandemic began, which is when I was doing all this recording. I had released a book called ‘Let Love Rule,’ which is about my life from birth to the first album coming out.” “In that book, I spent a lot of time exploring my teenage years,” he explains, “which I hadn't really gone in depth in, in that area of my life in a while. So I think, because I had done that, it was in my spirit and it began to come out. After I cut the first couple of tracks, I started pulling out pieces of equipment that I used to use back then that I thought would be fun to explore. So the record is a bit of that time and, of course, the present.” “I was in [the studio] for almost three years; I made like four albums worth of music,” he teases. “Some of it needs to sit and marinate, and this collection of songs on ‘Blue Electric Light’ felt like needed to come out first. It was immediate, it was ready now.” “As far as the songwriting goes, the beautiful thing is I receive that. I'm just an antenna,” Lenny tells us of his process. "I hear what's out there and then the work comes in, when you're transcribing what you're hearing in your head to the tape… it's a beautiful part of the work. It's painting, it's sculpting, it's constant refining until it sounds like what you heard in your head.” Three years of constant work certainly sounds like quite a schedule, but Kravitz also places a huge importance on stepping back to breathe and rejuvenate. “You have to chill,” he says. “I don't ever feel uninspired or dry… There's just breaks that need to happen where you need to have some recreation.” “You know, Prince taught me a really interesting thing," Lenny remembers. "He used to like to play with words and he said, ‘The word ‘recreation’ is re-creation, but the way we say the word, we don't think of the words for what they are: Re-creation. So, you got to step away, chill, and then it comes again.” Looking back on his prolific catalog of music, Lenny sees his 2004 album Baptism as “a really cool record,” that may have slipped under the radar for some. “It's got, I think, some really good songwriting on it. Songs like ‘The Other Side,’ and ‘What Did I Do with My Life?’ That record went quite deep regarding life and mortality, and destiny.” Although at first, he admits industry reviews at the time bothered him, he quickly realized, “I would read reviews about Led Zeppelin or Bob Marley or whomever… these s*** reviews, and I said, ‘OK, you know, not everybody gets everything at the time.’ It doesn't matter as long as you're doing creatively what is authentic to you, then great. People don't have to get it, or they can.” Someone who definitely “gets it” but still chooses to roast him tremendously is his daughter, Zoë Kravitz, who was on hand at her dad’s Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony to talk about his see-through shirts during her touching speech. “You can't touch her,” he says. “She's sharp. She's quite amazing, but she calls it like it is and I love that and, that's the relationship we have -- and that's the relationship we should have.” Zoë’s approval of her father’s fashion aside, Lenny still dresses to impress, and shouts out his friend, actor and model Alton Mason, as someone who also steps up their game at every turn. “Incredible style,” says Kravitz, “and wears clothes very well.” Throughout his career, Lenny has had the pleasure of working with superstars the likes of Aerosmith, Madonna, and David Bowie... and of them all, he looks back most fondly on singing beside The Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger on his solo record, producing and writing for Michael Jackson, and playing with the ‘Godfather of Soul,’ James Brown. “These are people that you grew up with, they're your teachers,” he explains. “I have so much respect for these folks, and then when you're working with them, it’s always amazing because I'm still that 12-year-old kid. You know, I was just in L A., in the studio with Stevie Wonder, and it's a trip. It's wonderful to be able to work with the people that taught you, and that mean so much in the world of music.” Looking at the landscape of music as a prominent Black artist of the past 30+ years, Kravitz hopes to see others continue to break down stereotypes and break into different genres as he did before and as Pop queen Beyoncé is about to do with her Country era. Whether or not that has become an easier task today than when he was coming up, he admits he’d “like to think so,” while adding, “What's interesting is how all this color stuff gets filtered out. Because obviously, music is for everybody, right? There's no color when it comes to it.” “Now, your history is your history,” he continues, “Black people invented Rock N’ Roll and had a great deal to do with Country music. It's funny, when I was younger and I'd be bringing these tapes to these record labels and they’d say, ‘This is a white genre…’ I never understood it. You have the people that work at the record label,  A&R -- Artists and Repertoire -- and you would have your Pop, which meant ‘white’ and you'd have the Black side, and I never understood it. But everybody should be crossing the lines, it’s beautiful and [Beyoncé’s] killing it…. Walls are always being moved.” Pre-orders for Lenny Kravitz’s Blue Electric Light are available now. Lenny will also be hitting the road this year, with dates currently scheduled overseas. Don’t miss Mike Adam's full Audacy Check In with Lenny Kravitz above -- and stay tuned for even more conversations with your favorite artists on Audacy.com/live. Words by Joe Cingrana Interview by Mike Adam

Joining host Bru for a special Audacy Check In today is singer/songwriter Benson Boone to discuss his brand new chart-topping hit "Beautiful Things," upcoming tour dates, debut album plans, and more. "Sugar Sweet" singer Benson Boone has returned this year with his new smash single "Beautiful Things," and will be hitting the road on a massive world tour beginning this April. “I tried to be really good about setting goals this year,” Boone tells us of his year so far. “Before I'd be like, ‘I'm gonna work out eight days a week… No, it's just never gonna work.’ But this year I was really set on my goals, and two of my biggest goals were, one, to have a song over 200 million streams, and two, to get 20 million monthly listeners on Spotify, and month two -- done, and done.” “It blew my mind how insane this song took off,” he adds, “and then how people are taking it… I'm incredibly grateful for the support it's been shown. it actually is crazy to me.” “This song is definitely a lot different from every song I’ve released,” Benson explains. “It is a very different sound, a different part of my voice, and kind of like a little bit more near what my music will sound like in the future. I think a different audience took this song and obviously social media helped a lot with that.” “I think this song, in my opinion, is so much different than all my other music,” he continues, “and it's a lot better. It's just kind of new, it just feels like a new sound.” Getting into some specifics behind his new single, “Beautiful Things,” Benson says he’s proud of the soaring high notes that he hits throughout the chorus. “I've been working on training my voice to hit that and not die because when I was in the studio, I definitely did not sing it healthy,” he admits. “I tried to sing it so it would sound the best for the song. But I was like, tapping myself so I could hit those notes, trying to just do anything I could to make sure it didn't sound crazy.” Now seeing his song at the top of the charts amongst new music from Beyoncé, Ariana Grande, and Taylor Swift to name just a few, Benson says the last couple of weeks have been “hard to process.” “It like, genuinely blows my mind,” he says. “I still don't think I actually understand the weight of how the song is doing. There's been one moment, it was three weeks ago when I wrote the acoustic version for ‘Beautiful Things,’ and I listened to it after we had wrote it in the car… after listening to it, it was a very emotional moment for me. Like, like the one, two-minute period I've had in the past two months of actually thinking about what the song has done and how it's doing.” Looking ahead, Benson’s tour dates will kick off in just a couple of weeks, and he reveals, “An album is definitely in the near future.” “I'm honestly so stoked for tour," he says. "This will be, for sure, the biggest shows I've played, and to me, I love performing. That's where I'm in my element. So, I'm very, very excited to be on the road with the boys and just ripping every night.” “I have never been more proud of my sound,” Benson says of the tracks he’s been working on for his full-length debut. “The songs I've written and how they sound, how they feel, the melodies, the lyrics… I love the songs I've made recently more than any other songs I've ever created,” he says. “Do I know if other people will like them more? Like, no idea. But in my standpoint, I think I'm the most proud of the next songs that will be released for sure.” “I've talked to so many artists and everybody kind of says the first album is like your whole life up until that point,” he says. “That's why I really wanted this one to be perfect for me, like, just feel right for me. And truly, I mean, no song is similar to the next. They're all so, so, so different and I think that's what I love… every song is like a different mindset, me in a different period of my life.” Though he hasn’t revealed an official release date yet, he warns, “Whenever it comes out, whenever you guys want to listen to it in the near future -- in the very near future -- just like, definitely be prepared for, you know, screaming songs and slow songs… just every vibe.” 2024 is shaping up to be a big year for Boone -- the North American leg of his upcoming Fireworks And Rollerblades tour kicks off on April 3 in Chicago, making stops in Boston, Philly, NYC, Atlanta, Los Angeles, and more before wrapping up in Vancouver on May 4. After that, he's set to head to the UK and Europe and will finish everything off with dates in Australia and New Zealand through September.  Don’t miss Bru's full Audacy Check In with Benson Boone above -- and stay tuned for more conversations with your favorite artists on Audacy.com/live. Words by Joe Cingrana Interview by Bru

Joining host Bru today for a special Audacy Check In is singer Meghan Trainor, giving us fresh details behind her forthcoming album, Timeless, her brand new tour dates, and more. GRAMMY-winning singer Meghan Trainor has revealed her first round of tour dates in seven years, as well as the release date for her sixth full-length album, Timeless, set to hit shelves on June 14 -- just in time to celebrate the 10th anniversary of her diamond-certified smash “All About That Bass.” Getting right into her brand new single “Been Like This” with T-Pain, Meghan admits, “I can't believe it's real, I can't believe I could say that, I can't believe it's finally out! After ‘Made You Look’ popped off, a lot of comments I saw were like, ‘Wow, I thought you retired’ and I was like, ‘Oh, I'm still here. I'm doing it… I've been like this, and T-Pain's having that same moment where people are like, ‘I didn't know he could sing so well.’ And I'm like, ‘Oh, you're new here. I've been knowing how good he is.’ So, it felt like destiny to have this song together and he murdered his verse. It was so good.” “We just shot the music video together and I cannot believe my life,” Meghan adds. “I will say that it was the most physically tasking… It was challenging for me physically because I was like, doing what felt like a pull-up the whole time. But I'm hanging on top of a chandelier and I was holding on for dear life... But I looked cool and I look calm up there.” Their collaboration, Meghan believes was no accident. “Every day my mom's like, ‘Hey, 15-year-old Meghan, you have a song with T-Pain!’ And I'm like, no way, dude,’” she admits. “I’ve been manifesting him for like, 10 years,” she laughs.  “Like, nice and loud, I'm on my 10-year anniversary of ‘All About That Bass,’ and when people ask me, ‘Who's your favorite artist? T Pain. ‘Who's your favorite songwriter?’ T-Pain.“ “I've been putting this out into the world for a long time,” Meghan says, and after finally getting his number last year and “casually” sending him her idea for the collab, he was all in. “Then he ghosted me for a while,” she reveals. “I was like, ‘he hates me,’ but it was all a part of a big surprise for my 30th birthday! He surprised me at my house on my birthday… and he played me the verse that he sang on.” Meghan’s new album title was chosen specifically because of her “wish that we were timeless forever. And my love for my family, and for the fans, and music is timeless. So, I hope in 50 years we can play this music and go, ‘Wow, it still slaps, you know?’ That comes out on my hubby's birthday in June, and then after seven long years, I'm going back on tour,” she explains. Of course, the pandemic slowed things down for everyone, so she took what she calls a break. “I got pregnant, had babies, you know, did that. That was tough too,” she admits, but now “they're happy and great and healthy and we're blessed and I'm going to bring them on the road.” Family dynamics while traveling from city to city can certainly bring its own set of challenges, but already there seems to be hope. “We're trying to talk to our three-year-old about like, ‘you're going to live on a bus,’ and he's like, ‘I can't wait,’” she says. “I've been practicing and getting back into it,” performing small shows to get back into the groove, “but I'm just so excited to sing for my crowd, for my fans, my people,” she says, “because some gigs you do it's not always your fans out of there… but my fans are going to scream every word and I haven't had that in a minute.” Revealing some more Timeless details, Meghan tells us that T-Pain is actually included on another song, “Love On Hold,” stopping short of revealing another big collab. All 16 tracks she says are “upbeat, happy, confident… and then we got a deluxe with extra ones possibly. There's only one slow song, called ‘Timeless’ -- it's the big ballad, the big love song. And there's another slow one that I did with my little bro, called ‘Forget How To Love,’ which is very big and powerful.” One chance Meghan will get to perform in front of fans before her tour kicks off will be at Audacy’s Leading Ladies concert at Brooklyn’s King’s Theatre on March 20, also featuring Kelsea Ballerini, Elle King, Christina Perri, and Rachel Platten. Kelsea, she says is “the love of my life and she doesn't know it… she texts me randomly every now and then when I do an interview and she's like, ‘You are me and I am you, and we are best friends,’ and I'm like, ‘I feel that,’ but I never get to see her. Who else is on the show? Christina Perri – icon, legend. She’s so nice. She emailed me a whole thing when I had my first mental health moment publicly. I was really going through it, like panic disorders and panic attacks, and she reached out to help me out of nowhere and I was like, ‘Why are you an angel?’” And then [Elle] King, queen, she's going to be there and we're all going to sing a songwriting round, one at a time.” Wrapping up their chat with a perfect bow, Meghan says the entire concept behind Timeless comes from her being mesmerized by the fact that “we're here and then we're not,” she explains. “I don't get it and it rattles my bones. So, I wrote a song, ‘Timeless,’ as if maybe I bet we're timeless. The amount that I love you, this can't just end. It has to go on forever. That's with every family member I have, I haven't experienced big loss in my face yet and I don't know how I'm going to be. I don't think I'll be good, but I'm writing these songs preparing me for it.” “I'm like, ‘It's ok. I will hold your hand later if, if and when that happens.’” Don’t miss Bru's full Audacy Check In with Meghan Trainor above, and stay tuned for more conversations with your favorite artists on Audacy.com/live. Words by Joe Cingrana Interview by Bru

Bon Jovi is celebrating 40 years as a band with new music, remastered classics, a documentary and more and frontman Jon Bon Jovi stopped by for an Audacy Check In to chat about it all. The band’s new single, “Legendary,” is available now and provides a taste of their 16th studio album, Forever, available June 7. The project was created in celebration of the group’s 40th anniversary and is centered around nothing but positive vibes with Jon penning the majority of the project solo. “It's an album that we're incredibly proud of, [‘Legendary’] is by far not the best song on the record, there are several,” Bon Jovi said before detailing the project centers around pure joy — a contrast from their last album, 2020. “There is truly just joy in this album. There's joy, and you're going to hear it in the narration because the storyteller has come to, you know, like a place of comfort and resolve, and there's joy again.” In addition to new music, the legendary group is also ready to tell their story in a new 4-part Hulu docuseries, Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story. The project marks the first-ever docuseries in the band’s history that has been made with full cooperation from all past and present members and will tell the story from start to present day. “It's not a puff piece, you know, I take some punches in the nose, as do other guys in the band, but everybody was fine with it,” JBJ shared. “It was just like, this is each of our truths. And it was a 40th year anniversary, so an opportunity to look at what we've done.” One of the many stories detailed in the series will be Richie Sambora’s dramatic departure from the group in 2013 after serving as lead guitarist and key songwriter since 1983. While the sudden departure was a set back for the group, JBJ shared there’s no animosity between them now and they even watched parts of the new documentary together. “Eleven years ago, you know, for reasons that were certainly nothing to do with the band, he walked out,” Bon Jovi shared. “There was no [animosity], there was nothing but love. But we had a show that night and subsequently had one the next night, and for 11 years, I've been making records and doing shows. So everyone knows where the bus stops, you know…but there's nothing but love.” He continued, “Richie's gone on, on his own and, you know, he raised his daughter and, you know, so if he wanted to show up and play sometime, he knows the songs… He came to the house, he watched the first three parts of this film with me. We roll on. I had a record to make, and, you know, I got work to do.” While the project seems to have brought a lot of closure to the group, Jon revealed he’s not sure where they’re headed. When asked about the title and its possible cryptic nature, JBJ simply highlighted the beauty of the unknown. “I think that the beautiful thing is, is that I honestly don't know the answer,” he responded when asked if the series title, Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story, meant a curtain call for the Rock group. For now, he’s remains focused on new music, and the lasting impact and fan support across the last 40 years. “I don't know it firsthand, I only know it from afar,” he said of the music’s impact on fans. ”I know that the catalog stands up…the catalog really has stood the test of time. And so there's generations of people still listening to the music, and that's what, well, it's not really what makes me do it, but I still love writing a song. And when you write, you wanna share it, and you put it out there, you know, and then what happens, happens.” Hear more about the documentary, new music and remastered classics by tuning in to Jon Bon Jovi’s Check In with Audacy’s Remy Maxwell, above. Words by Monica Rivera Interview by Remy Maxwell

"The world has turned," and today Weezer's Rivers Cuomo joins host Kevan Kenney for a special Audacy Check In to fill us in with details about what the band has in store for fans on their recently announced 2024 "Voyage to the Blue Planet" tour. “I feel like I'm in a spaceship now,” Rivers tells Audacy host Kevan Kenney, “which is very apropos because I'm announcing Weezer‘s tour of the United States this fall with Dinosaur Jr and The Flaming Lips.” “We're calling it ‘Voyage to the Blue Planet,’” he adds, “and the thing is, we're gonna play a bunch of classics and then we're gonna kind of zoom back through space and then land on this ‘Blue Planet’ and play the ‘Blue Album’ -- our first album, from front to back -- which turns 30 years old this year on May 10.” The upcoming anniversary tour is set to kick off in Los Angeles where Weezer got their start, scheduled for March 15 at The Lodge Room, with a special concert featuring the band they performed their very first show with -- Keanu Reeves’ Dogstar. Looking back at 1992 in L.A.; post Nirvana, post Pearl Jam, but with Guns N’ Roses still charting, “It was awkward,” Rivers admits. “It definitely seemed like there were still a few holdovers from the Sunset Strip, Glam-Metal days, but most people were trying to do the Grunge thing and we would be playing on the same bill as like three or four other Grunge bands and we, you know, we looked and sounded totally different... like the ‘Blue Album.’ So, it didn't hit as long as we were playing the clubs in L.A. We didn't get much of a buzz or a following. It wasn't until they started playing our first single, ‘The Sweater Song,’ on the radio -- that's when kids heard our music. Until then, we were playing for 21 and up people in the clubs and they were still doing the Grunge thing. It wasn't until we hit, got on the radio, that we really found our audience.” “I feel like it's still happening,” he adds, “because there's still like 10-year-olds who are discovering the ‘Blue Album,’ like really relating to it. There's something about 23-year-old me that is very similar to a 10-year-old mentality.” Describing how the band promoted and shopped their music to major labels as independents back in the early ‘90s, Rivers remembers, “The first thing you do is you just play, you play out every week in the clubs and you befriend other bands, especially bands that are a little further along. They have more of a following; they have some more industry connections... and there are some bands that really helped us, like Wax and Black Market Flowers. Then, you just try to meet as many people in the industry as you can. You make a demo tape, you pass it around. Eventually, labels start sniffing around. That's when you can hire an attorney, and then their job is to officially shop it to the labels. In our case, all the labels got interested. They all passed, except for Geffen Records.” “That was the last one standing,” he says. “They signed us and it was just the perfect tone because, at that time, they were just the masters of breaking a new Alternative Rock band.” One massive bit of exposure that longtime fans will remember, and 10-year-olds will certainly have to Google, was their video for “Buddy Holly” being included in the CD-ROM for Windows 95. “The amazing thing is,” Rivers reveals, “no one ever asked us permission. We don't know if the label gave it without asking us or if Windows, I can't imagine Windows just put us on there. But yeah, we were never consulted. We definitely would have said ‘no,’ because back then, bands just didn't do partnerships with corporations like that at all. It was unheard of, but they did it. And of course, we were all upset when we found out about it." Of course, as it went on to be a massive promotion for the band, they relented. “It's totally unexpected because, Windows 95, that's what everyone was using and everyone was so excited to see a video on their computer," he says. "Pair that with the fact that it was such an amazing video. It's like, everyone was watching ‘Buddy Holly.’” An interesting note: At the time, Weezer was actually hesitant to include “Buddy Holly” on the ‘Blue Album,’ but it was only the persistence of producer Ric Ocasek of The Cars who pushed them to include it. “It was the last song I wrote for the ‘Blue Album,’" Cuomo recalls. “It wasn't on the demo we originally sent Ric.” Rivers remembers writing the single “right before we went in to record the album and I loved it. But I thought, ‘This is what I want the second album to sound like. So, I'm gonna save this one for the second album.’ Ric had to keep cajoling me like, ‘No, we should consider putting this one on the blue album.’ I'm glad we did.” Ocasek’s contributions to the record, and the band’s overall sound, are innumerable, says Cuomo. “You just have to listen to our demo and then listen to the album. It's like, ‘Wow.’ The chemistry of being with him, being in New York City, being in this legendary studio -- Electric Lady -- which is where all the KISS records were made. It just made us step up our game and start thinking like, ‘OK, we're going to be a major Rock band and not just some, like little Indie band in, in L A. Everything got turned up and tightened up, and it became the powerful juggernaut that it is.” Weezer’s ‘Blue Album’ follow-up, Pinkerton, came about in a unique way as well, created with Cuomo’s unfinished Songs From The Black Hole, a Rock Opera he had planned and subsequently left on the cutting room floor. “I was really into Jesus Christ Superstar and Les Miserables at the time,” he says. “So, it was like a full-on musical with a story, and different characters, and different singers. But I never finished it and I abandoned it and it just turned into ‘Pinkerton,’ which is a great album too.” Though the thought of actually turning it into an operatic production has gone by the wayside, “We've definitely thought about finishing it musically,” he says. “I hadn't thought about turning it into something else, like a movie or a staged performance. There's one song from it that now has kind of taken on a new life. ‘I Just Threw Out the Love of My Dreams’ got discovered on TikTok, so you can hear Weezer but with a female singer, Rachel Hayden. She was playing one of the characters in ‘Songs From The Black Hole.’” Getting back into ‘Blue Album’ lore, Rivers and former Weezer bassist Matt Sharp, a huge part of the ‘Blue Album’ who left the group in 1996 citing differences within the group, actually got together and made music in early 2004, which unfortunately has never seen the light of day. Rivers is unsure of what happened with those recordings, saying that Sharp is "the one who would have the tape... We would have to ask him. I've always wondered that myself, like, ‘What happened to those?’ We did play a show. It was his show and I came and kind of crashed it and played a bunch of songs with him and the kids were super excited. I should ask him, I just had dinner with him a few days ago.’ Finally, Rivers left us off with a tease about a new, 30th anniversary deluxe edition of the ‘Blue Album,’ set to be chock full of old show recordings and rehearsal recordings... “Like very early Weezer,” he says. Though no solid release date has been set, he expects it to be available, “I guess before the tour.” Don’t miss Kevan Kenney’s full Audacy Check In with Weezer’s Rivers Cuomo above, and stay tuned for more conversations with your favorite artists on Audacy.com/live. Words by Joe Cingrana Interview by Kevan Kenney

New music from Bleachers has arrived, and frontman, Jack Antonoff, stopped by The Hard Rock Hotel in New York to talk all about it with Audacy. The new, self-titled, studio album marks the group’s fourth as well as one of the most anticipated albums of 2024. Previously released singles “Modern Girl,” and “Alma Mater” feat. Lana del Rey gave fans a glimpse into the magic to come, which stands firm in the foundation of Antonoff’s songwriting, producing, vocals and innovative ideas. “I'm just more interested in shocking people with known things,” Antonoff said of his creative process. “If I can make a guitar sound different, if I can have my drummers play… off each other in a way that is like these are drums but feels specific and different – that's just more interesting and gratifying to me than flying all the way over here for the sake of doing it. So, I often like a specific palette [rather] than just trying to find something really shocking within it.” While finding joy in new sounds and “bizarre sensory contradictions of modern life,” Antonoff supplemented it all with his biggest joy in life — songwriting. Penning every single one of the 14 tracks on his own, Antonoff says the new album gave him good reason to retreat into the space he feels most valuable. “The mountain I’m on, or always looking at is the songwriting one and it just keeps growing,” he said, admitting the songwriting aspect of music is where he feels most comfortable. “Just when you have something figured out, it’s like a whole new thing opens, which is really mysterious and sometimes frustrating when it comes to writing and so I find that if I stay there, I don’t think about anything else and that’s where I feel valuable.” While his love for the craft was certainly an asset in the creation of the album, the eleven-time GRAMMY-winner shared he also has to make sure he doesn’t let himself fall too far down the creative well. “You get to this point where like — gift and a curse — you can really feel yourself somewhere and you want to stay there but you also want to have a life outside of it. So, gotta work real hard to find that balance when you’re very passionate about something because it can eat other things sort of alive.” One thing that helps him remain balanced is hitting the road, which is exactly what he’ll be doing this Spring as he embarks on Bleachers’ 2024 U.S. tour. Kicking off May 18 in Salt Lake City, Bleachers will play a number of dates throughout the country before wrapping June 15 in Antonoff’s home state of New Jersey. Find tickets here. Explore more about Bleachers self-titled release, the magic of songwriting and Antonoff’s musical perspective by checking out his full interview with Audacy’s Kevin Kenny above. Bleachers’ 2024 self-titled tracklisting: 1. I Am Right on Time2. Modern Girl3. Jesus Is Dead4. Me Before You5. Alma Mater6. Tiny Moves7. Isimo8. Woke Up Today9. Self Respect10. Hey Joe11. Call Me After Midnight12. We’re Gonna Know Each Other Forever13. Ordinary Heaven14. The Waiter Bleachers 2024 U.S. tour dates: 05/18 Salt Lake City - The Great Saltair *05/20 Morrison, CO - Red Rocks Amphitheater *05/22 Omaha, NE - Steelhouse Omaha *05/23 Kansas City, MO - Grinders KC *05/25 Chicago, IL - The Salt Shed *05/26 Madison, WI - The Sylvee *05/28 Nashville, TN - Ryman Auditorium *05/31 Austin, TX - Moody Amphitheater *06/01 Houston, TX - White Oak Music Hall Lawn *06/02 Dallas, TX - South Side Ballroom *06/04 Columbus, OH - Kemba Live! *06/05 Pittsburgh, PA - Stage AE *06/07 New Haven, CT - Westville Music Bowl *06/08 Lafayette, NY - Beak and Skiff *06/10 Boston, MA - MGM Music Hall at Fenway *06/12 Philadelphia, PA - The Met Philadelphia *06/14 Washington, D.C. - The Anthem *06/15 Asbury Park, NJ - Stone Pony Summer Stage* with Samia Words by Monica Rivera Interview by Kevan Kenney

Joining us for a special Audacy Check In is Guns N' Roses ax man and guitar legend Slash, right here to reveal details and behind-the-scenes insight into his brand new, blues-inspired solo album Orgy Of The Damned. "I'm a rock guitar player that's firmly rooted in blues," Slash revealed on Monday, March 4, sharing a teaser video for his upcoming project. "Blues guitar is really something that I got turned on to when I was a kid. If you were to listen to anything that I do, you can see how big the blues influence is, and I always thought that I'd wanna record a record of it at some point. And we got together and did it." Slash is with us today to talk about his forthcoming solo record, Orgy of The Damned, set for release on May 17 -- his nod to some of the great Blues music that influenced his life and musical career. “When I was a kid, you know, I got turned on to a lot of music, a lot of blues music coming up,” Slash tells Audacy host Steve Migs. “But then as a guitar player, I was turned on by [Jimi] Hendrix and [Led Zeppelin’s] Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck and [Eric] Clapton, and all those sort of guys that came out of the U.K. and I quickly found out that their particular styles were all rooted in that music that I grew up listening to previously. So, it was a full circle thing for me.” “Those original musicians, when you listen to the original tracks... like Eric Clapton and Rory Gallagher, and all these great guitar players and also singers that came out of the English explosion there, British, whatever you call it,” Slash explains, “they're so phenomenal. But when you listen to those original guys, man, it's some serious f***ing s***.” “The feel and the natural kind of cadence, and just the delivery of those songs from those original artists is something that you really can't touch,” he continues. “Even some of the best Blues guys around can only barely scratch the surface on how great some of that original stuff was.” Slash employed some big names to help him out with the upcoming release, including Gary Clark Jr., ZZ-Top’s Billy Gibbons, Iggy Pop, Chris Robinson of The Black Crowes, Pop star Demi Lovato, Country favorite Chris Stapleton, AC/DC’s Brian Johnson and Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler just to mention a few, with the latter two featured on the album’s first single. “I've known Brian for a pretty long time now and he just has that great kind of grit to his voice,” Slash explains of his involvement. “I called him up and it turns out that he is a huge f***ing Howlin’ Wolf protege. [Brian] had been in cover bands before AC/DC and even before Geordie.” “That's the key thing that you're looking for,” Slash says when reaching out to work with great artists; whether or not “the song speaks to them, that it has meaning to them too. Not just me. That’s how it was with Brian... and then Steven Tyler came in and, he came to my studio after Brian had already done the vocal and... he came in to do the harmonica or he just happened to have a harmonica with him. I can't remember, but I played it in the track. It's like, ‘This is great.’ It was very spontaneous, very, just sort of inspired in the moment, which is a great thing to be able to capture, especially now because people just by and large don't make records like that.” While Orgy Of The Damned is set for a full release on May 17, the brand new song “Killing Floor,” originally by Howlin’ Wolf, is available now. “This record was inspired by something that I used to do way back in the ‘90s -- a couple of the musicians on this record I used to jam with in Blues cover bands a long time ago," Slash explains. "I always wanted to make a record of this stuff, and one of the songs that we used to play was ‘Papa Was A Rolling Stone.’ When it came to doing this record, I was like, ‘I really wanna do that song,’ and Demi [Lovato] came to mind mostly because I know her, and I know some of her background, and we've been through some similar stuff and so on -- and she's just really cool. But also the idea of having that sort of young, almost childlike but really killer soulful voice singing." "That part about their estranged, late father who did all these sort of, you know, just short of diabolical things that they heard about," he continues, "What a great way to deliver that concept with this young girl's voice. So, I called her about it and she was like, ‘Oh my God, that would be such a great song to do because I can relate to it on a lot of different levels.’ She was full-on into it when we went into the studio to do it and you can hear it in the delivery.” One divergence from Slash’s plans for the new album, he revealed, came from the one and only Iggy Pop, who delivered his own idea to Slash for his recording rather than the other way around as he had with the rest of the tracks. “That recording was actually very special," he says. "I've found out through the grapevine, actually from our bass player, that he'd read somewhere that Iggy would always want to do a Blues thing, but he's just never done it.” So, Slash picked up the phone and simply asked Iggy if he had a track in mind. “It was Lightnin’ Hopkins’ ‘Awful Dream,’ which is such a left-field obscure track,” Slash says. “When you listen to it, I'm pretty sure it's an outtake that was done between takes or at the end of the session, it's not really, you have to hear it. It's not really put together, it's just sort of like a loose jam. But you know, Iggy is pretty profound and there was a lyrical content in there that he really f***ing related to, anyway... It was something that meant a lot to Iggy.” Don't miss our full Audacy Check In with Slash above -- and stay tuned for more conversations with your favorite artists on Audacy.com/live. Words by Joe Cingrana Interview by Steve Migs

Kings of Leon is just a few months away from the release of ninth studio album and it’s all about fun. Appropriately named, Can We Please Have Fun, the band shared the project is centered around returning to their roots, celebrating the beginning of their third decade as a band and remaining true to who they are. “We had kind of come to a point when it was like, ‘All right, should we go out [to] celebrate the 20 years and do that tour?’ And we weren't ready for that. We still have more to give,” Caleb shared during a recent Audacy Check In at the Hard Rock Hotel in New York City. “So we used that to motivate us to push ourselves harder. In the process, we got back to our creative ways and being a little more fearless, not thinking about the outcome of the music and just making stuff for us that made us smile. That's how we made music in the beginning and that's how we made this album.” Added Nathan, “There's a big difference [between] making music that you think people want you to make and making music that you feel and you want to make. After success, a couple of big songs or whatever, it is easy to [follow] that formula that people liked and was big for us. [Can We Please Have Fun] was the total opposite of that, at least for me it was.” The guys credit the album producer, Kid Harpoon, for fostering a place of creativity for them and creating a space with no rules when it came to creativity. “We worked with Kid Harpoon on this one,” said Jared. “He's such a positive, almost like childlike, up for anything, try this, try that [kinda guy with] no rules or boundaries. He just got something out of us or at least allowed us to do things. He was super fun and sweet and just got the vibes up. It was such a good vibe going in every single day and it just made us feel young again.” Fans got taste of the “good vibes” to come with the release of “Mustang,” the lead single from the project and the guys’ first newly recorded material since the release of When You See Yourself in 2021. Proving they found inspiration in the most authentic ways for this project, Caleb says his kids are to credit for the standout line, “Are you a kitty or a mustang?” “I owe it to my kids, really,” he said. “My son was wearing a Mustang t-shirt and my daughter had YouTube videos of cats on. When we went in the studio, I sang that part, not thinking it was going to be the lyric and Kid [liked it] so I was like ‘Le’s go with that.’” He continued, “'Mustang's one of those [songs] that has like some quirky lyrics and stuff, but I feel like there's a little bit of that in everything, even songs that are deeper and more, slow kind of vibes. There's a lot of little Easter egg lyrics that will make you go like, ‘Hmm, that's interesting.’” Fans can hear it all by checking out Kings of Leon’s new album, Can We Please Have Fun, available May 10. In the meantime, get all the behind-the-scenes info and more from their Audacy Check In with Brad Steiner above. Words by Monica Rivera Interview by Brad Steiner

Joining hosts Remy Maxwell and Weasel for a special Audacy Check In today is guitarist and songwriter Mick Mars -- formerly of Mötley Crüe -- on the release day of his brand new solo album, The Other Side of Mars.  Mars first teased fans with his solo single, "Loyal To The Lie," back in November of 2023 following his tumultuous departure from Mötley Crüe at the end of the year, and his brand new full-length, The Other Side of Mars, is out now. Rounding out Mick Mars' band on the new release are Korn drummer Ray Luzier, bassist Chris Collier, keyboardist Paul Taylor, and lead vocalist Jacob Bunton, as well as singer Brion Gamboa on two tracks. Regarding the two singers on the album, Mick remembers meeting them both through his new Nashville neighbor, Paul Taylor (of Alice Cooper and Winger fame). “I told them I was looking for something different," on the two variations between Brian and Jacob. "It's like this big circle thing that went on, and Ray Luzier also came on board. I really didn't think that he would... I mean, he's a monster drummer.” Mick also revealed that he worked with singer John Corabi (another Nashville resident and the vocalist featured on Mötley Crüe’s 1994 self-titled album, which just happens to be turning 30 years old next month) on some of his solo songs at the very beginning stages. “I put out a couple little teaser things on I forget what it was, but I listened back to them again,” Mars admits, "and they just didn't hold up song-wise. No fault of John's. The songs in my feeling were a little weak, a little dated as well, and I didn't want to go back to that. So, I started over again... John and I had no commitment together or anything... and I wanted to kind of depart from that whole era anyway, step away from the 80s -- maybe 80s and 90s and 2000s, and 2020s,” he laughs. “The only people who can do that is The Stones, come on!” Speaking of his move to Nashville after spending the better part of his life in Los Angeles, Mars simply said he felt it was “time for change. The house that I was living in was just kind of a, oh, you know, I wanna get outta here and do this. Just empty, just had a couch, and Marshall Stacks, and guitars. That was some heavy touring days though, too. So I go, ‘Eh, I'm gonna get outta here -- and weather changes would be good,' that kind of stuff. So, my wife and I decided. We came out here to Nashville a few times and looked at some houses, and we're like, 'Yeah, this would be cool.' And we found the Castle. My studio, when you look at the door, it looks like a dungeon.” That dungeon studio will be getting plenty of use in the foreseeable future, as Mars admits that after waiting close to 40 years to put out his first solo record, he’s already got plans in motion for a follow-up. “Well, you know, it took me 40 years because Mötley was priority,” he says. “Now that I'm retired, I'm just me, you know? I mean, if Mötley wanted me to write songs with them again, of course I would. But right now I'm just like me. So, I'm writing, and it's not Mötley, and it's how I feel. My ideas and my kind of thing, and trying to reinvent myself or bring myself up to date. I listen back to some of the other things and I'm going like, ‘Wow, I was stuck in the 80s then. This time, after the final tour, I really got a chance to really hardcore buckle down and try to do something that's more new to me reinventing myself, like I say.” Check out Remy Maxwell and Weasel's full Audacy Check In with Mick Mars above -- and stay tuned for more conversations with your favorite artists on Audacy.com/live. Words by Joe Cingrana Interview by Remy Maxwell and Weasel

Joining the Klein.Ally.Show today at the World Famous KROQ in Los Angeles, singer Gwen Stefani dropped by to talk about the upcoming No Doubt reunion scheduled for the 2024 Coachella season, her new single “Purple Irises” with Blake Shelton, and more. "This is so wild, I mean, you have no idea. KROQ was, when we were kids, our life. That's how we discovered who we were through the music you guys were playing,” Stefani says of her connection to the station that her music has had since her earliest days in No Doubt. “So, the idea of being in the future right now and ‘Purple Irises’ -- I mean, none of it makes sense, but here we are!” Looking back on those days, Gwen says, “I just remember every morning before school listening to whatever they had, these countdowns. It was like, ‘Here's the number one songs’ and [radio personality] Richard Blade and, I mean, we were fans of the DJs... that's where we found our identity, you know, that's it. It was KROQ.” Stefani continues, “I was the one that showed up at the roller skate rink and [tried] to be a fan... just all the music that we learned on that station. It was just so cool. And then I can remember when ‘Just A Girl' got on this, not ‘finally’ because we never really dreamed it really would. We hoped, but we didn't think it would happen. I just remember getting that first Acoustic Christmas. That was huge because we had the 15-minute slot the first night, the first day, and the first band. It was 15 minutes that we played.” Now, almost three decades later and enjoying worldwide success with her solo music and television career, Gwen admits she does get that same feeling these days as well. “I still get to play like a lot of weird little shows, like private shows, and I do like doing them because a lot of times it's like they're not your fans. For me, the idea of trying to win people over is, I don't know what it is... I just want you to like me.” “Purple Irises,” Gwen’s latest single released as a collaboration with her husband, Blake Shelton, and performed this year for the first time during the Super Bowl LVIII TikTok Tailgate event in Las Vegas, was a track that she had kept in her pocket for a number of years, she explains. “I honestly, I need to go back and look when I wrote this,” Stefani admits, “because I wrote it with this little Alternative girl called Niko who had written the first of ‘True Babe.’ She sent that to me and then we finished it together and then that song came out. It was just really cool to write with her because there's all these amazing songwriters out there, like back in the day with No Doubt. We were -- when I say No Doubt, it's weird because I am in No Doubt too but for some reason --- the guys and I would write songs like we didn't know what we were doing. We didn't have somebody that's professional, that's like, ‘OK, no, you can't do that many syllables. It won't rhyme,’ or whatever it was. We just did whatever we did, we just made it up ourselves." “Later in life when I was doing ‘Love. Angel. Music. Baby.’ and ‘The Sweet Escape’ and all that, I got to go in with these professional-of-the-moment songwriters and it was so incredible," she says. "One of the first ones being Pharrell and being able to work with people outside of the genres that I knew. It was just like such an amazing-as-a-songwriter thing to learn and the collaborations have always been my favorite, best work I think.” “In this instance,” she says, “I had been going down this whole road of, since 2020, [wanting] to make music again, and I had Kelly Clarkson, for example, because we work together on ‘The Voice.’ She was texting me during quarantine all these demos of her songs and that she'd been writing and I was like, ‘But wait a minute, we're in quarantine. I'm doing home school, I'm cleaning toilets. I'm trying to make three meals a day. I'm learning how to make sourdough, like everybody else. And what are you, writing these songs?’ I was so jealous and she was like, ‘I don't sleep,’ and she had younger kids than me! That was when I first was like, ‘I want to try.’” After spending over 100 days in Oklahoma during the pandemic, Gwen made her move. “I went to the studio and it was like, the whole studio, the inside was wrapped with plastic... and the girl I wrote with, we were wearing masks. I still, if I saw her, I wouldn't recognize her. We had to have our feet sprayed when we walked in! Like it was a whole thing and I wrote the first song there and I was really about going backwards. I was like, ‘Oh, I want to do Reggae. I want it to be fun. The world needs fun.’ But it always felt like I was trying to chase myself or compete with myself in some way. I don't really think I knew that until I wrote ‘Purple Irises.’ It was like, ‘OK, now I feel like this is what the record is going to be.’” The track’s energy, to Gwen, is “me in the back of the station wagon in Orange County on the way to church with my parents, listening to that seventies-like music that was the backdrop of my childhood. That's the inspiration it came from... and it was just a vulnerable week, and I just wrote this song about what was going on. After that is when I started writing the rest of the record.” That’s right, you heard correctly. A full album is on the way. “It just happens that Blake is in a break,” she says. “He doesn't have anything out right now. It's weird though because they say ‘never work with the kids, animals, or your spouse,’ right?” Also on the horizon for Stefani is the highly-anticipated reunion of No Doubt over two weekends during this year's Coachella festival. Hearing those songs from the early days still ring very true to her all these years later she says. In fact, “I can't listen to a lot of songs because they speak so clearly to me,” Gwen admits. “You know, you have regrets, you have mistakes you've made, and most of the songs are about that. If I do ‘Ex-Girlfriend,' even when I say it, I almost throw up in my mouth because it's like, just know exactly where I was at in that moment to write that song. What I know now, it's just like, ‘Oh my God,’ it just brings you right back.” “There's lots of times where you'd be on tour and you're doing the repetitive songs, but it's not really, it's not the songs, you're not in the songs, you're there with these new people every night and they're receiving the songs. That's where you get the energy, and you kind of relive that moment with them,” Stefani explains. “I can't believe that I was chosen to be able to have this life, because it's such an incredible way to, I don't know, just express yourself but also get to know yourself... and the songs do that. It's not just me because a lot of people are getting that from them as well.” Don't miss the full Audacy Check In with Gwen Stefani above. Words by Joe Cingrana Interview by Klein.Ally.Show

As she drops her first studio album in a decade, This Is Me… Now, as well a coinciding Amazon Original This Is Me… Now: A Love Story, Jennifer Lopez checked in with Audacy’s Bru to chat about it all. A sequel to her third studio album, This Is Me… Then, released in 2002, This Is Me… Now marks Jennifer’s ninth — and possibly final — album. And with it comes, “a narrative-driven cinematic odyssey, steeped in mythological storytelling and personal healing,” so says the official press release. Discussing her decision to take this creative route and tell her story in this way, Jennifer said, “You know I made the album This Is Me… Then 20 years ago… and captured kind of a moment in time when I first fell in love. And then as fate would have it, I had a second chance at that, and got very inspired again and went back in the studio. Wrote an album in a couple of months, and then when it was done, I was like this is really special but doesn’t really tell the whole story.” “It’s a nice celebration, it does capture the moment,” she continued. “But when I think about Then and Now and all of the time, the 18, 20 years in between and what it took to get there, that part of the story that’s really important too… So I got with Dave Myers, called him up, told him, played him the music, he was like ‘wow OK, what do you wanna do?’ I said just something that’s not really been done before, I actually, I wanna do this and that and this and that…. and we kind of collaborated and created this experience.” Just from the Amazon Original trailer alone you can already tell the duo did not play when it comes to the visuals. All of which, according to J.Lo were a struggle to shoot, but obviously totally worth it. “It was one of the hardest projects I’ve ever worked on, I really threw everything into it that was part of me. Whether it’s my love of musicals, doing romantic comedies, dancing, singing, fashion, everything about myself. And then on the personal side, all of the pain, and the joy. and the laughter, and the kind of like sadness. All of it, just kind of all into one thing, and it really turned into something really spectacular I think.” Also chatting about how her rekindled romance with husband Ben Affleck influenced her, as well as what role he played in supporting her throughout, Jen expressed — “I mean he was a big support through the whole process, and kind of the person who was really like, 'this could be amazing.'” Another way Affleck supported his Queen is by appearing in the Dave Meyers directed musical epic. And he wasn’t the only star to do so. In addition to Affleck, Fat Joe, Trevor Noah, Kim Petras, Post Malone, Keke Palmer, Sofía Vergara, Jenifer Lewis, Derek Hough, Jay Shetty, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Sadhguru, are all also set to appear. To conclude the conversation Bru asked Jennifer, what is it that fans come up to her most for, her acting or her singing (among the many other things she does). “You know, it’s kind of the whole thing," Jen expressed, sharing she most often receives messages of gratitude “for inspiring” others to do whatever it is they want to do. “Because they see me kind of like with opposition at times, and with kind of like criticism, and all kinds of things, and not stopping.” “And they don’t know the times that I doubt, and the times that I do feel like giving up and all that," Jennifer added. "But what they do see is that I haven’t, and that I work hard at it… the hard work thing I hear a lot too.” Which as Bru delightedly noted and J.Lo cheerfully agreed, is not a bad thing to be known for. For all that and a bit more, listen to the entire conversation above. Both the album This Is Me… Now and This Is Me... Now: A Love Story arrive on Friday, February 16, 2024. Words by Maia Kedem Interview by Bru

Joining host Remy Maxwell today for a special Audacy Check In is Judas Priest frontman Rob Halford, giving us details about the band's upcoming album, Invincible Shield, set for release on March 8, as well as what to expect on their upcoming tour, and more. We're just weeks away from the release of Metal masters Judas Priest's 19th studio album, Invincible Shield, which was announced on-stage at the 2023 Power Trip festival and is set to drop on March 8, featuring the singles "Crown Of Horns," "Panic Attack," and "Trial By Fire." Invincible Shield marks the band’s first release in six years, after recently celebrating 50 years in music and 50 million records sold. As a bonus, the band will also be hitting the road on their upcoming Live Nation-produced Invincible Shield Tour, which is kicking off in the U.S. on April 18.  Joining us from his kitchen in the West Midlands; “In the black country, the home of Heavy Metal,” as he calls it, frontman Rob Halford and the rest of the band are currently gearing up for rehearsals for their Invincible Shield World Tour, kicking off in the U.K. this March “for the first time in forever,” Rob admits. “We're starting in the U.K. Glasgow, Bonnie Scotland, you're getting us first.” When the band makes their way to the U.S. in April and May with special guests Sabaton, Rob says “That's gonna be kind of an opportunity to complete what we originally set out to do,” of course referencing guitarist Richie Faulkner being rushed to the hospital with major heart issues in 2021. “I'm so grateful to the Sabaton guys to reconnect with us so we can kind of finish what we started, if that's the right thing to say. We love that band, and I think that a lot of the fans were eager to see this happen again and make the whole thing go full circle.” Diving straight into the first three singles already released from Invincible Shield -- "Crown Of Horns," "Panic Attack," and "Trial By Fire" -- Halford says, “Your first three tracks of your new album are so important because they have to send the right messages out in terms of connectivity and ‘what are they doing now? What is it gonna sound like?’ You know, there's then the excitement and the anticipation of your new music, your fans around the world are just like, ‘What are they doing? Give me some, I want to check it out.’” “There's that great intro to ‘Panic Attack,’" Halford explains, “which starts with the almost turbo sounding guitars and then the drums, and then the syndrums -- and I thought, ‘I just know our fans are gonna be listening [saying], ‘What the hell is this s***? What are they doing now?’ Which is exactly what we wanted to do in terms of getting your attention, getting you focused and ready. Because when that song opens up when those first rhythm riffs start blasting through... and then the band is just taking off. We leave the launch pad immediately.” “There are structures, the arrangements, the DNA of that song is full of lots of beautiful metal trails that take this band all the way back to [1976’s] ‘Sad Wings of Destiny’ and beyond. That's important, that this music on ‘Invincible Shield’ is obviously the reference to Priest in 2024. It's built-in... instinctively. You know what you gotta do, but you've got to work really hard to come up with the goods that are carrying their own, so to speak. Every track, every track, we're still delivering the goods.” “I'm really pleased with the way that we've unleashed these first three tracks,” Halford admits, “because again, it just shows you the breadth of the ability of this band to take you to all these different places. Those three songs are nothing like each other... but when they're connected to the rest of the material you're getting, again, this beautiful album definition of what Priest is doing in representing itself in 2024. Wait ‘til you hear ‘The Serpent and the King,’ that's gonna rip your head off.” Judas Priest stepped in for the ailing Ozzy Osbourne this past October at Power Trip in the California desert, performing alongside Iron Maiden, Guns N' Roses, AC/DC, Tool, and Metallica. It was “a remarkable event,” Halford says. “We were obviously grateful to have the opportunity to be there, but when I step back now and I look at the moment, and the bands that took part in that Power Trip, wow, it was extraordinary. One of the most powerful things for me is the fact that these bands collectively cover like hundreds of years of music if you put us all together in a timeline of how long we've been around and what we've done.” “For those fans,” Rob continues, “my nephew Alex, Ian Hill's son, he was there for three days and he came to have fish and chips with me the other day and he's still buzzing... He's still in Palm Springs in October of last year because it carried so much weight. “We're all fans of each other. It's the purity, it's the absolute simple purity and love and respect that we have for each other in these bands, and Metallica will be the first to say how much they love Priest and how much we've been in each other's world in that respect,” Halford continues, remembering how he learned after their set that the Metallica members had been up front singing and wailing along. “You know, probably the biggest band in the world in Rock and Roll, and for them to do that was just an absolute display of the realness of it all, the absolute realness of it all,” he says. “To be out there at the front, I didn't even know they were there until afterwards. My phone started pinging and I'm going, ‘What's going on? I'm looking at the phone and then I see clips of, you know, Kirk [Hammett] doing it... That's who they are. They're beautiful guys.” Looking ahead to their upcoming tour dates, Halford wants fans to know that “When you see Priest, now more than ever it's an event because you're seeing a band, the core of the band has its roots in the very beginning of Heavy Metal. Two bands that define the beginnings of heavy metal, Judas Priest and Black Sabbath... Sabbath have done their duty and now they're in a different place. So, Priest is it if you wanna see where it all started. If you wanna hear music when we fire up ‘Victim of Changes’ again in 2024 that was written in 1972, 73 and you see the reaction that's making still. The roots of that song comes from 1970; look what it's doing now in 2024. There's very few bands that can carry the weight of that and still be standing with the horns up with their beautiful fans and going, ‘look at us, we're still here and we're still making metal.’” “Check out the ‘Invincible Shield,’” Rob implores, “and come and bang your heads with us when we get into town.” Listen to Remy Maxwell's full Audacy Check In with Judas Priest frontman Rob Halford above -- and stay tuned for more conversations with your favorite artists on Audacy.com/live. Words by Joe Cingrana Interview by Remy Maxwell

Ahead of his new studio album, Love in Stereo, release on February 16, MAX stopped by for an Audacy Check In with Mike Adam at the Hard Rock Hotel in New York to share all the details and tell fans exactly what they can expect from the new project. MAX increased excitement surrounding the album just a week before its release with the debut of a fresh track titled, “Stupid in Love,” featuring Huh Yunjin of K-Pop girl group, Le Sserafim. A song inspired by his own love journey with his wife, MAX says it was the perfect peek into the tracklist for fans. “I wrote this song for my wife,” the 31-year-old said of the new single. ”We got engaged in four months, got married in nine months, so a lot of our family members were kind of concerned that we were being a little silly, being a little stupid… we were always kind of stupid in love so this song came from that.” “I was in Korea, I got to try co-writing for Le Sserafim, the group, and I got to meet Huh Yunjin while I was there. Sent her the song and the rest in history." Huh Yunjin isn’t the only collaboration fans can look forward to on the album. MAX shared the project has plenty of partner-work as he also joined forces with Keshi and Duckworth, and is manifesting a collaboration with his greatest inspiration, Dolly Parton, for the Deluxe album. “We’ll see if we can manifest it for the deluxe, every interview we have until it happens, we’ll just keep manifesting it,” MAX said of his dream duet with Parton before detailing how she inspired him. “I think Dolly’s always been an inspiration of no matter how anyone else feels about her, she brushes it off. She’s so resilient, she’s so unapologetically herself and her writing and her heart is what she puts forward the most, and that’s so inspirational.” While Dolly has influenced much of MAX’s career, she isn’t the only artist that lit the former Nickelodeon Star’s creative fire while working on Love in Stereo. MAX shared he had some Soul artists heavy in rotation on his playlists while songwriting for the project, which translated to some of the songs. “I always go back to the soul classics, a lot of Etta James, a lot of Stevie Wonder, a lot of Marvin Gaye, a lot of Prince,” he shared. “I like diversifying the sounds on a project, so each song sometimes has a different flavor of an inspiration... I definitely notice [that] what I’m listening to at the time get planted into the heart of [the song I’m writing].” Hear all the flavors of inspiration by checking out MAX’s new album, Love in Stereo, available February 16. Plus, listen to his full interview with Audacy’s Mike Adam above for more on the album, his thoughts on the 2024 GRAMMYs, TikTok, and how he stays motivated. Words by Monica Rivera Interview by Mike Adam

After much anticipation and hype, Zara Larsson’s fourth album, Venus, has officially arrived and she’s checking in with Audacy’s Mike Adam to chat all about it. Sitting down for a conversation at the Hard Rock Hotel New York, Zara discussed the decisions to go nude on the album cover, and reason she named the album Venus. “It was a decision that I made because I wanted it to feel very timeless and ethereal, very inspired by The Birth of Venus, the painting. And there’s something… very timeless about not having clothes or any type of fashion and just being in the skin you’re born in, and kind of like Goddess-y. That’s what I wanted to capture, a bit of Goddess-y vibes. I’m glowing a little bit, it’s a picture, but it feels like a painting, and I just felt like, why not?” Originally planning to name the album something different, Zara had a different album cover “that was done like a year ago.” But once the project took a different direction and was titled Venus, “that cover just did not fit.” “I think bodies are just very natural and neutral, y’know?,” Zara added. “And even though I do find the cover quite sexy, being naked doesn’t have to be affiliated with like sexiness… it’s just like existing in like your skin.” The decision to veer the album in a different direction, and change the title to Venus came about after Zara finished the song of the same name. “I think it ties everything together quite nicely because, the album or just my music in general is a lot about love,” Zara explained. “It’s a lot about different perspectives of looking at love. It could be platonic love, I have a song ‘On My Love,’ which is my sister, which is like one of the most important loves in my life. And I think Venus who is the Goddess of love, just encapsulated that quite beautifully.” “Venus is such a strong concept in a way, I really like that,” Zara added, “and also the song ‘Venus’ itself is basically a song to love itself or to realize like ‘wow I didn’t know love could be what I’m experiencing now.’ Like what I’ve experienced before has been completely different from this, and now it’s like this new thing and… I’m also releasing this album through my label, I feel like I’m stepping into like womanhood in a different way. I feel grown now, I really do, and I’ve been in industry for quite some time. But now I’m like, I make my own decisions, I’m an adult.” Zara and Mike also went on to discuss the singer’s booked and busy schedule as she prepares to head out on her UK tour. “It’s been a lot… cause there’s a lot of new material… which is so exciting. I mean this is really the first time in a very long time I’m gonna go out on the road and do my new music. Like I couldn’t do it with Poster Girl cause it was in the middle of the pandemic. I did some festivals the year after that, but this is really like, it’s fresh, it’s new.” When it comes to getting things just right, Zara noted, “I feel like there’s never enough time. I would love to have even more time and just get it like, so good. But at least I get to do a lot of practice runs before." "I’m you know, I’m not gonna say anything,” and then she kinda did, adding, “but I might have something coming for the US later.” Then a bit later also adding, “I'm going hopefully on a world tour, everywhere.” Also delving into her social media behavior, presence, and etiquette, that somehow always seems to be under fire. When it comes to all that, FYI, Zara is very much aware, yet still… “I can’t shut up.” “I think also I look at a lot of stuff that I post or just you know say as I’m not that serious, I don’t take myself very seriously. And then sometimes it travels to an audience that I’m like, ‘oooh we shouldn’t have reach that,'” she said with a laugh. Another thing, Mike mentioned, that he’s sure Zara is very proud, and jokingly added, “I don’t wanna take credit for it, but we did talk about it last time.” Her debut album, 1, is now available on streaming services. “How does that feel?," Mike inquired. “It feels amazing,” Zara replied, “that was also one of the reasons why I was super happy about owning my masters now, is that I could just do whatever I want with them. And I figured, of course I want to put it out and let people hear it because it is such a big part of my artistry, and who I am. and how I started out.” “So now the people… if they’re interested in me and my music, can go in and really hear my journey from the start. It feels incredible because the songs on there, like to me, they are just as fresh and amazing, I feel like it aged so well.” Zara also went on to boast that the album will be “turning 10 this year in October, which is just insane.” Adding, that she’s “so happy so proud and hopefully people will listen to it and get to know me even more.” Zara also talked about her friendship with RAYE both in and out of the studio, and to that we say — ummm, where’s the collab? She also chatted about the 2024 GRAMMYs and how it was such a celebration of women, and expressed she’s a “huge fan of Victoria Monét,” who she’d also absolutely love to collaborate with, going on to add a few more names to that list including Dua Lipa, Tyla, and Troye Sivan. And while Zara’s very much focused on all thing Venus, she did offer up a few thought she has when it comes to her next album. To hear it all, listen to the entire conversation above. Words by Maia Kedem Interview by Mike Adam