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September 2024

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163 articles

September 30
- Watch Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder team up with Roger Waters to sing Pink Floyd classic Comfortably Numb at the most star-studded concert of this millennium
- "I hated Tom Waits at first." From Aretha Franklin to Gravediggaz, Julie Christmas makes us a soundtrack of her life
- ADHD, jazz-obsessed parents and a traumatic tube attack: inside the rise of Graphic Nature, one of the UK's most exciting young metal bands
- "I thought it was my responsibility to tell the truth as I see it": Kris Kristofferson on Janis Joplin, Johnny Cash and country music
- The best new rock songs you need to hear right now
September 29
- Watch Motörhead’s Lemmy play the violin in this bizarre Kit Kat advert from 2001
- “Boz would always have a bottle of Smirnoff in his bass case”: The epic life and high times of Bad Company bassist Boz Burrell, rock’n’roll’s ultimate cool dude
- “It took a minute to come around to the idea that I wanted to be in Evanescence again. I’ve been defined by it but it’s not the whole picture”: How Amy Lee reconnected with herself on Evanescence’s self-titled third album
- “Every video we made, we were like, ‘Oh my god, what are we doing?!’”: Creed’s Scott Phillips looks back on the band’s big budget music videos
- “We were called the ‘Pink Floyd of the 90s.’ But there’s always been more in my music”: The story of Porcupine Tree’s Stupid Dream, the cult classic that set up prog for the 21st century
- “Quentin had it down to three tracks and he was going to bounce it off Uma Thurman and let her choose”: the story of how Urge Overkill’s Neil Diamond cover made its way onto the Pulp Fiction soundtrack
- “I had to threaten them. If they weren’t going to include all of my ideas on it, I was off. No one was expecting me to be quite so forthright”: Genesis’ Selling England By The Pound wore a smile over hidden depths
September 28
- “I’m watching American TV and it’s like ‘Wow, man… what is this? This isn’t my America’”: How Machine Head followed a 21st century metal classic with Unto The Locust
- “I wanted to make the ultimate record. And then the band could stop”: How The Cure’s Pornography, Disintegration and Bloodflowers albums became goth’s great ‘Dark Trilogy’
- “It gets tiring doing the same thing. In this life, you gotta do what you want, you gotta let your mind and fancy flow free”: The epic story of Jimi Hendrix’s Axis: Bold As Love, the heart of the guitarist‘s Holy Trinity
- "I want people to have sex in the moshpit." How Mimi Barks went from Berlin fetish clubs to leading her own nu gen revolution
- “Our practice room was a church. The vicar used to let us in and then leave. We ransacked the place, basically”: How Venom made their unholy masterpiece Black Metal and changed the course of metal
- "His kid goes to our kid’s school, he's a lovely guy": how Metallica's Robert Trujillo and James singer Tim Booth became unexpected lunch buddies
- “We were thrilled to be in England. I was discovering the joy of a pint of bitter”: R.E.M.’s Mike Mills looks back on the band’s first ever UK show
September 27
- A beginner's guide to Wu-Tang Clan, one of hip hop's most unique, innovative, wildly creative and untameable powerhouses
- The 15 best new metal songs you need to hear right now
- “I’m not saying my doing something else saved Slipknot, but it certainly saved me”: How Stone Sour made the leap from Corey Taylor’s ‘other band’ with Audio Secrecy
- “Being a musician, you feel like you’re failing if you don’t achieve your dreams – that’s why we chose Dream Chaser as the album title”: Rendezvous Point face down their fears with their third album
- "I went over to John's house, and he just started sobbing and said he wanted to do it": The story of the Red Hot Chili Peppers album Flea thinks is the best they ever made
September 26
- “It was a case of meeting one of your idols and realising he is a total douchebag.” Ministry's Al Jourgensen on the night he worked as a “man-slave servant” for Led Zeppelin's Robert Plant, and how it screwed up his love life
- "How does anybody get better after something like that?" The Cadillac Three's Jaren Johnston lost his father to Covid. Celebrity fans and the biggest shows of his career are of little comfort
- "God's punishment on society for all the evil that we have done": A brief history of Cop Rock, the eighth worst TV show ever made
- "I asked George to turn it down a little. He looked at me and said: You don't talk to a Beatle like that": How The Beatles made Abbey Road, told by those who were there
September 25
- “Their mastery of black metal left them nowhere to go, except into far weirder and more interesting territory”: Where to start with Ulver
- “The first day of rehearsal they forgot me!” Watch Nirvana's first-ever TV performance as a four-piece, with future Foo Fighter Pat Smear on guitar
- “You know within 10 seconds if that person’s right, and straight away we knew she had it”: The making of Secrets Of Angels, Karnataka’s only studio album with Hayley Griffiths
- "It's a bit traumatic if you wake up there's a story about a picture of your penis on ABC News": Think Neal Schon's year has been interesting? A decade ago it was even more so
- Mezcal, coffee plantations and Bitchin' Sauce: Six things you need to know about L.A. Edwards
September 24
- “It attempts to create order from chaos, but never reaches the goal.” Celebrating Trent Reznor's long, hard road out of a personal hell, as heard on Nine Inch Nails' bleak, challenging masterpiece The Fragile
- "It was do or die." After a decade of "failures" Nothing More kept the faith and wrote their breakthrough hit This Is The Time (Ballast)
- “George Harrison opened the door to reveal a Formula 1 car in the hall. He said, ‘We made it from a kit and can’t get it out of here!’” Former ELO bassist Michael de Albuquerque’s life and times
- “You could argue we were the quintessential cult band. But I was thinking, ‘We can be more than this’”: In Absentia sold poorly, influenced greatly, and marked the beginning of the end for Porcupine Tree
- "Taylor Swift is probably the most influential guitar player of my generation": This is the soundtrack of Joanne Shaw Taylor's life
- "I was listening to Jimi Hendrix and Zeppelin and asking my mom to help me make bellbottom pants": Bones Owens on growing up, touring on a Harley and living the dream
September 23
- "Things have always been ****ed up." How death, cancer and a whole pandemic helped make Yesterwynde the most optimistic Nightwish album yet
- Here's how you can safely install or replace a turntable cartridge
- “I took off my apron. My manager said, ‘You’ve got tables to serve,’ and I said, ‘I’m talking to Peter Gabriel!’” How actor Adrian Lukis was talked out of signing a music contract by his Genesis hero
- The best new rock songs you need to hear right now
September 22
- "On a road trip to Los Angeles, about to move into the first home he'd ever purchased, something gave way": The torment and triumph of Bruce Springsteen's Born In The U.S.A.
- “We were torn between trying to make it big and making our music more crossover, but failing… that happened because we became conscious of what we were doing”: The Power And The Glory signalled the beginning of the end for Gentle Giant
- "I remember being sat in the car the day after I got arrested and Danny was coming up with lines in the car, going ‘Caught by the fuzz!'": Supergrass on the making of their classic debut single
- “I had become Musical Director, which I always hate. But I took the money and took the title and did the job!”: The Cure’s Reeves Gabrels on the time he became David Bowie’s touring MD
- “The aim was to be ‘the best group in the world’… this easily becomes confused with ‘the most successful group in the world,’ at which point the music may get lost”: Robert Fripp’s observation of King Crimson
September 21
- “They actually asked Judas Priest to write music for it. We saw it and decided to avoid it like the plague”: The inside story of Rock Star, Hollywood’s infamous attempt to make a heavy metal movie
- “Had we not made this record the way it sounded, I’m not certain there would have been another album”: How Opeth ditched the death growls and fully embraced prog on Heritage
- "We're playing Creep and looking terrible": revisiting Radiohead's most deranged performance ever
- "If Cocteau Twins counts as a ‘job’ then of course that was the best": former Cocteau Twin Simon Raymonde on the magic of his old band and being a record label chief
- "It’s always been the song that we would say, ‘This is our best song'": Creed's Mark Tremonti on the track that the band think is their finest
- “It was total overkill. We were getting in all sorts of trouble. I thought, ‘I’ve got two months of this, I’m going to be dead at the end of it!’” The epic story of Iron Maiden‘s conquest of America
September 20
- The 15 best new metal songs you need to hear right now
- "A true believer, sharp as a knife, heart of gold." A tribute to Michelle Kerr, the ass-kicking, passionate PR legend who helped shape modern metal as we know it
- "Slipknot used to have taser fights." Morgan Lander talks nu metal, pranks and the wildest tours Kittie have been on
- "I was very green and it was a tentative start, but we knew we had something": The complicated birth of Led Zeppelin
September 19
- The 10 psych-rock bands you need to be listening to right now
- "It’s not The Beatles, it’s not Metallica, but it wasn’t ever supposed to be." Mushroomhead blew up with nu metal and were rivals with Slipknot, but never got the dues they deserve
- "The future of music is not Taylor Swift." Monster Magnet's Dave Wyndorf shares his wisdom on AI, aliens and the state of rock'n'roll
- "It was a watershed moment for the band, with our existence very much under threat": Steve Hackett on The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway and keeping the Genesis flame alight
- "We never had to try to fit in because we were never going to": Punk legends X are finally getting the recognition they deserve, but their biggest success is failure
- “He said, ‘You’ll be with me for a short time because I won’t be able to keep you.’ And he was right… We were always quietly confident”: What went right for 10cc, what went wrong, and how they could have avoided it
September 18
- "It quickly becomes obvious that this is more than just a festival – it's a movement". The 8 best bands we saw at Decolonise Festival 2024
- "It'll be extra special!" Haken's Ross Jennings gets ready for Be Prog! My Friend. Read our full preview here...
- “Roots Bloody Roots is like a baby’s lullaby”: Sepultura/Soulfly legend Max Cavalera picks the five songs that define his career
- "Our influences are really hard, dark rap tracks." How Sweden's Thrown became breakout stars of metalcore's most aggro subgenre: pissedcore
- "We’ve been trying to get Chuck D to do something with us again." Anthrax talk collabs, politics and using Dave Grohl's studio to record their new album
- “Bands that went from beauty to absolute hideousness attracted me – Van der Graaf and King Crimson managed to create fragile music that was then utterly destroyed”: The roots of Tim Bowness’ Powder Dry
- "Vivian is still battling cancer, we've still got a one-armed drummer. But these are obstacles that we just mock": Joe Elliott on why Def Leppard won't be retiring any time soon
- "John Lennon doesn't have to do this, why should I?": Pink Floyd, Syd Barrett, and the creation of See Emily Play
- "Hustle, write, be authentic, collaborate": Blues-rocker, radio host and award winner Elles Bailey on how to succeed in the music industry
- "It felt as though there were three guitars behind me that night": The night Jimi Hendrix saved Engelbert Humperdinck
September 17
- “You can get lost in the kitten vortex for hours.” A wide-ranging interview with The Jesus Lizard's David Yow, taking in new album Rack, a try out for Nirvana, acting, a sadistic witch, and a cat riding a goat
- "I got high on mushrooms with Brent Hinds from Mastodon." How Zeal & Ardor went from grotty squat-punks to one of the most innovative bands in extreme metal
- “I acknowledged my masochistic side… my self-destructive nature peaked”: Louise Patricia Crane can’t escape her dark aspect, so she’s brought it into the light on her new album
- “It’s hard to be angry young men at our age, but there are some pretty heavy duty lyrics here. Sometimes you’ve got to speak up”: When Marillion defied expectations (again) with Sounds That Can’t Be Made
- "It's very important to me that I make people feel something": Meet Bywater Call, your new favourite Canadian jazz-trained blues-rock band
- Fastball's Tony Scalzo used to work the graveyard shift at a bagel store: Now he's celebrating more than 30 years of "a certain degree of success"
- "I wanted to go back to being a cult band, which is what I had sought all along": After 35 years, Monster Magnet know exactly what they want
- Our tiny minds have just been blown by a man playing Jimi Hendrix's Voodoo Chile (Slight Return) on a whammy clavinet
September 16
- “We played a cave underground. There was water on the floor and all our electrical stuff was in the water.” How Slift became heavy music’s least likely viral sensation
- “The original idea was to sell my songs to a publisher, not that I should be a singer or a performer”: An unexpected interview with Kate Bush while she was writing Hounds Of Love
- The best new rock songs you need to hear right now
September 15
- "The sun will rise and fall, and BB King will play the blues": The incredible life of BB King
- "That's the problem with me, you see. I'm a lunatic": The true story of Marc Bolan's final days
- “It has brightened my spirit to see how many have posted about Ric, praising his originality, flair, and brilliance”: Revisiting Billy Corgan’s tribute to late Cars leader Ric Ocasek
- “It was very bittersweet and not an easy decision for us to arrive at”: Michael Stipe looks back on the day that R.E.M. split up
September 14
- "Antics leaked 10 days after we finished it... you’d go to every city and someone would be talking about it": Interpol on the premature release of their brilliant second record as it turns 20
- “When we first playing Reading, we got everything thrown at us. The whole crowd hated us.” Bring Me The Horizon’s Oli Sykes on the hurdles the metal giants overcame to become one of Britain’s biggest bands
September 13
- The 12 best new metal songs you need to hear right now
- “80 per cent of the people I meet are very boring people.” In 1975, Deep Purple's Ritchie Blackmore named his favourite guitarist, and shared his brutally honest thoughts on the '70s music scene
- "He's the king of death metal." Opeth's Mikael Akerfeldt and Fredrik Akesson name the greatest death metal band of all time, and discuss their own journey through the genre
- Cool new prog you really must hear from Teramaze, Joe Deninzon & Stratospheerius and more in Prog's Tracks Of The Week
- "I love being a poser!" Five minutes with Fernanda Lira of fast-rising Brazilian death metallers Crypta
September 12
- "Will we bring the tour overseas? We’re exploring options..." Lamb Of God's Randy Blythe and Mastodon's Brann Dailor talk their new collab single, their history together and what the future may hold
- “Delivering a cerebral, skilful and inventive blend of prog and metal, they’ve remained proudly on the periphery of fashion”: The best Dream Theater songs featuring Mike Portnoy (to date)
- “I met Brian May and said, You're the reason I used to spend months and months on end in my garage trying to build a f***ing guitar.” How Queen inspired Radiohead's Thom Yorke to follow his dreams
- “The four-note phrase is arguably the most recognisable motif of the entire Pink Floyd catalogue”: Seven powerful moments that help make Wish You Were Here so unique
- "Phil Mogg sings so unusually so it's difficult to copy, but Axl did a fantastic job": Michael Schenker's track-by-track guide to his new album My Years With UFO
September 11
- “When I’m onstage my job is to be God. And I’m pretty good at it.” An epic, exclusive, revealing and sporadically very amusing interview with The Sisters of Mercy's iconic frontman Andrew Eldritch
- “They arrested a girl who had a blank piece of paper. She was making the point that even doing that would send someone to jail”: Iamthemorning’s Marjana Semkina hated mixing politics with art – until her native Russia’s war on Ukraine
- 4 brilliant new metal bands you need to hear this month
- “I never mind faking it. I had a filthy cold on the night, so vocals were grabbed from other shows. It’s only artifice when you pretend it’s something it isn’t”: Peter Gabriel explains his passion for the video medium
September 10
- Watch 'The Battle of Britpop' play out on a football pitch, as Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher squares up to Blur's Damon Albarn in this resurrected archive footage
- “I realised on the very first tour that this was no kind of life… Should I be excited about leaving my family? No”: Neil Peart’s love, pain and thoughts on playing live before Rush bowed out
- “There’s a few stations that’ll play my music; very few, and usually after midnight”: Frank Zappa’s final print interview, and the 12 words he signed off with
- "Smile at your scared opponent and help them. If he's swinging wildly, chill him out": The Gospel according to Duff McKagan
September 9
- "It was important for us to press the reset button": Joe Perry on touring with Kiss and the making of Aerosmith's Honkin' On Bobo
- “He says, ‘Here you are, my good man’ and he hands me this glass of champagne.” How a wayward flying bass led to Nirvana meeting Queen legend Brian May for the very first time
- “It was sounding great, then halfway through the loop stops… We turned into a sort of working men’s club band!”: Marillion’s late-career hit single didn’t stop people asking Steve Hogarth about Fish
- The best new rock songs you need to hear right now
- "I've not done Taylor Swift's numbers, but I don't give a sh*t because I'm proud of the songs I did": As Fish prepares to leave the business behind, he reflects on Marillion, going solo and life after music
- "What's the difference between a Lada and a sheep?": Brian Johnson on the worst and best cars he's ever owned
September 8
- "They're called The Experience, man. You've gotta see them": In December 1966 Jimi Hendrix released Hey Joe: Five days later he played a casino in a hotel basement
- Actors, artists, transvestites, junkies and wannabes: How Lou Reed made the defining album of his career
- “Our producer played the intro to Nevermore and I was just blown away”: How U.K. became Witherfall guitarist Jake Dreyer’s prog heroes
- The 10 best cover versions by Smashing Pumpkins
- “For all its flights of fancy it’s not ironic; it finds him rooting for hard-grafting, often veteran grapplers”: The prog credentials of Luke Haines’ 9 1/2 Psychedelic Meditations On British Wrestling
September 7
- “I’m not very good at ignoring people who slag us off”: the story of Radiohead’s My Iron Lung, the song that changed everything for Thom Yorke & co.
- “The great albums were not made under a microscope. They were made by living, breathing people who were excited by what they were doing”: How Kiss fought back against the music industry with Sonic Boom
- The 10 best Britpop B-sides, featuring Oasis, Supergrass, Ash, Elastica, Blur and more
September 6
- “One of the most singular, unique and influential catalogues in music history.” Every Talk Talk album ranked from worst to best
- The 14 best new metal songs you need to hear right now
- Awesome new prog you really must hear from God Is An Astronaut, Tomo Katsurada and more in Prog's Tracks Of The Week
- "You had guys who would jump into the crowd and then walk across people’s heads." Inside the year that turned thrash metal into a global phenomenon
- "I hear this screaming from behind me: Simon! Simon! Start the bloody song!" How Deep Purple entered their Mk IX era, inspired by the tedious complications of modern life
- "All the blood rushed into my fist and I decked him. He fell to the ground like a tipped cow": What happened the night Vince Neil punched Izzy Stradlin
September 5
- “Head and Fieldy are born-again Christians. I don’t choose sides. I’ve got Christian friends and Satanist friends”: How a reunited and rebooted Korn put religious differences aside to make The Paradigm Shift
- Does vinyl really sound better than other formats?
- “Robert Fripp was triggering sounds and I just responded… I told him I was feeling more comfortable, and he said: ‘You mean like you’re no longer being auditioned?’”: The series of incidents that led to Jakszyk, Fripp & Collins’ A Scarcity Of Miracles
- "I imagined cutting my hair to have a green reverse mohawk like Keith Flint." Leprous vocalist Einar Solberg picks the 10 records that changed his life
- "I'm an R&B singer in the body of a metal guy": Why Armored Saint recorded a cover of a Four Tops classic
- "I broke his nose. He chipped one of my teeth. We went and played the next day in Georgia and it was great": How Poison's career imploded
- What happened when we went record shopping with Tyler Bryant & The Shakedown
- To celebrate the 10th anniversary of Gene Simmons' pronouncement that rock is dead, here are the Top 10 other examples of Gene Simmons repeating his theory
September 4
- “It’s dangerous when you’re a kid shooting up drugs. Me and two other guys made it out alive. The others are dead or in prison”: How Mastodon transcended tragedy and trauma to make Crack The Skye
- 10 great Britpop-era indie bands who could reform to ease the pain of fans who missed out on Oasis tickets
- “I went to Rio for a show. I told my wife I’d just been for a helicopter ride and I was now sitting on gorgeous white sand… She hung up on me!” The need to deceive loved ones inspired Caravan’s Paradise Filter
- Back in the 80s, someone thought it would be a good idea to launch a sports-themed AOR version of the Village People: The result was the All Sports Band
- "There's a reason why it's sold more than all the other AC/DC albums combined": Why I love Back In Black, by Def Leppard's Joe Elliott
September 3
- “This presidency isn’t a surprise to me. You could see it coming a mile away. But the scope of the corruption is unparalleled”: How Ministry’s Al Jourgensen tried and failed to bow out with the George W Bush-baiting The Last Sucker
- “I love Radiohead more than I could possibly love anything other than my kids.” Why In Rainbows is Charlotte Church's favourite Radiohead album
- “I was sitting in a bar and a friend came in and said, Bono from U2 just phoned my mother trying to find you.” How Depeche Mode/Nine Inch Nails producer Flood got to work with U2, and why working with Brian Eno made him “reappraise everything”
- “Devin Townsend was sick but he jumped right in. He treated the music like it was his own, which meant the world to me”: It’s all going well for Anthony Vanacore since he left America for China, formed OU, hooked a star producer and never looked back
- Why your choice of stylus and turntable cartridge matters
- “I sing in pictures – as I sing I see myself standing on the deck of a bloody great boat in Rime Of The Ancient Mariner”: How Powerslave pointed the way to Iron Maiden’s epic future
- “We almost ended up performing with Geddy Lee… it’s better that it didn’t happen!” Anthrax’s Scott Ian explains his lifelong passion for Rush
- "No minor chords here, just major chords hitting you in the balls! I was just mesmerised!": What AC/DC mean to me, by Kiss's Gene Simmons
- "Oozing with a tangible undercurrent of dark, forbidden sex": The Stooges' songs that provided a perfect blueprint for rock's future
- "He proceeded to take his trousers off between songs. The police got very twitchy": The chaotic night Led Zeppelin jammed with Ten Years After and the Jeff Beck Group
September 2
- “I’m going to get into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame one way or another and Lars Ulrich can’t keep me out!” How Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine used old rivalries as fuel for the Endgame album
- “He took out this big knife, put it on the table with a loud thud, looked at us and said, There's a lot of crazy people out there.” Eddie Vedder on the night Pearl Jam supported Rolling Stones legend Keith Richards
- "I was in spandex pants, reading Karl Marx." From birth in Harlem to graduation from Harvard to stripping, Rage Against The Machine and fighting the KKK: this is the incredible life story of Tom Morello
- “We were held together by Sellotape and sealing wax… We knew our days were numbered”: Tired, broke and losing members, Van der Graaf Generator went down fighting with The Quiet Zone/The Pleasure Dome
- The best new rock songs you need to hear right now
September 1
- “We had collapsed financially – I couldn’t pay the wages. I was on the verge of bankruptcy”: The chaotic story of Ian Gillan’s erratically brilliant solo career
- From Oppenheimer to The Mandalorian, Childish Gambino to Vampire Weekend and more: 10 of the best by Oscar-winning producer and composer Ludwig Göransson
- “One of the toughest lessons I’ve learned is how to show backbone but not show your fist”: You Me At Six’s Josh Franceschi on the wisdom he’d pass on to the next wave of rock bands
- “There was some smoking and drinking but it wasn’t a lot of drugs. We weren’t coked out of our minds or shooting heroin”: The epic story of Kyuss, the stoner metal visionaries who blazed brightly and burnt out
- “You could be a Luddite and ignore these new instruments, or you could say, ‘Let’s give it a spin.’ And I chose the latter”: How Jethro Tull embraced synths, drum machines and the 1980s – and split their fans
- “I felt they were having second thoughts… I got quite angry – ‘Just stop the bus, I’ll get off, no problem’”: Ray Wilson knows what went wrong during his time in Genesis