INTERVIEWS
Depeche Mode’s Dave Gahan on Forging Ahead After the Passing of Andy Fletcher
Depeche Mode experienced the tragic passing of founding member Andy Fletcher in May of this year. On Tuesday (October 4th), the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame band announced that it will soldier on with a new album and tour in 2023. The new LP is titled Memento Mori, a Latin term used to describe an object that serves as a reminder of death. Despite the timing of the announcement, the name of the album and its subject matter had already been conceived prior to Fletcher’s passing. In support of the album, which is set to arrive in Spring 2023, Depeche Mode will embark on their first tour in five years, beginning with a North American leg that kicks off March 23rd in Sacramento, California. Tickets go on sale to the general public beginning Friday, October 7th at 10:00 a.m. local time via Tick...
NNAMDÏ’s Not Weird — He’s Wonderfully, Amazingly, Authentically Himself
On Friday (October 7th), pop experimentalist extraordinaire NNAMDÏ will unleash his newest album, Please Have A Seat. The record, his debut for Secretly Canadian, features some of his poppiest, most ear-worm tunes to date while remaining within the weird, outsider approach NNAMDÏ has become known for. But, is it really that weird? For years NNAMDÏ himself would say so, prefacing his music with a quick “it’s kind of weird” whenever sharing it. He even named his 2014 release Feckin Weirdo, and the branding stuck. The word would pop up in interviews and reviews, following the Chicago artist as he continued to make art that was true to himself. “It was kind of like, not a palate cleanser, but something preemptively being like, ‘Okay, it’s weird,’” he tells Consequence. “Just so they go in and ...
Lamb of God’s Omens Are Coming to Light
Real talk? The cumulative weight of changing trends, the major-label system and cruel fate have all failed to cushion Lamb of God’s blunt-force velocity. Their latest, Omens (out on Oct 7), is a throttled-out, high-decibel jetstream with a series of cautionary tales and psychic explorations couched inside its 10 songs. Whether addressing ecological ruin, psychological anguish or detailing the more corrupt aspects of mankind, the band does it with the same physical and emotional fury they’ve thrown down on their eight previous releases. Yet, for many years, frontman D. Randall Blythe was in a well-constructed, triple-riveted, state of denial when fans, critics and rock journalists tagged his band with the m-word. “I never wanted to be in a metal band,” Blythe says over the phone from a hote...
Bandsplain is Back with Road Trip-Worthy Music and Talk
After almost four months off the air, cult music guide Bandsplain is back with new episodes each Thursday. The show went on hiatus when its parent company, Spotify’s Studio 4, disbanded earlier this year. But host Yasi Salek wasn’t ready to quit just yet, so she revived the program via Ringer Podcast Network last week. The first episode of the reboot: a four-hour, part-one crash course on Smashing Pumpkins. Bandsplain maintains its original mission of acquainting outsiders with subculture-spawning groups like Insane Clown Posse and My Chemical Romance. When it started in February 2021, the show operated under a somewhat traditional structure – it switched off between music and talk, but all episodes were roughly an hour long. They did open with an intro song composed and voiced by Bethany ...
Bet the House on Freddie Gibbs
Freddie Gibbs realized his artistic appeal years ago. See the haunted closing lines from “BFK,” the title track of his 2012 mixtape Baby Face Killa: “Got a slug for the judge, bringin’ heat for police / And a book full of sins that I reap when I sleep / Then I wake up, and I put ’em on a beat; how you love that?” It’s a three-line summary of a catalog that now spans three decades: Gibbs menaces authorities while revealing past felonious trespasses have turned his dreams into nightmares. Ever self-aware, he breaks the fourth wall and arches an eyebrow at his audience. He knows that shuttling between conviction and contrition makes him the perfect gangster antihero, a Tony Soprano-like figure whose sins are as captivating as him grappling with them and grasping at redemption. In hindsight, t...
Beyond the Boys’ Club: Ann Wilson of Heart
Beyond the Boys’ Club is a monthly column from journalist and radio host Anne Erickson, focusing on women in the heavy music genres, as they offer their perspectives on the music industry and discuss their personal experiences. Erickson is also a music artist herself and has a new EP and single, “Last Love,” with Upon Wings. The latest edition of Beyond the Boys’ Club features an interview with the legendary Ann Wilson of Heart. As one of the founding members of female-led rock mainstays Heart, Ann Wilson knows just how difficult it was for women to break into rock music decades ago. She also knows what it takes to have staying power as a musical artist, as Wilson is still releasing imaginative new music and playing jam-packed shows. Wilson released her latest solo album, Fierce Bliss, ear...
Pixies’ Black Francis Talks New Album Doggerel, Why The Velvet Underground and Grateful Dead Are Similar, and Much More
Pixies are back with their eighth album, Doggerel, which finds the legendary alt-rock band exploring new sonic landscapes. With the album set for release on Friday (September 30th), Consequence caught up with frontman Black Francis to discuss the LP and more. Doggerel was recorded during the pandemic, with Francis having written 40 new songs heading into the sessions. The album also features the first writing credits from guitarist Joey Santiago, who co-penned the music for the single “Dregs of the Wine” as well as a few lyrics for the title track. With Doggerel, Pixies have now released as many albums (four) in their current era as they did in their initial run from the late ’80s to the early ’90s, during which they released four classic LPs in four years — including 1989’s Doolittle, whi...
Bryan Fuller on New Docuseries Queer for Fear and How Hannibal Is “Explicitly Queer”
In working on the new AMC documentary series Queer for Fear: The History of Queer Horror, director/executive producer Bryan Fuller (Hannibal) was excited to dig into all the facets of storytelling around this genre — including the way in which queer themes have been hidden within mainstream works for centuries. “As somebody who grew up used to the codes, and faced obstacles in my own career as a storyteller with queer representation, and having that eradicated or suppressed by studios or other creatives who just felt that the world wasn’t ready for queerness in that regard… I have a great affection for the codes of queerness, because there’s so much about being queer that is already coded,” he tells Consequence over Zoom. In fact, he says, that affection for codes ended up having a big inf...
L.S. Dunes Is the Post-Hardcore Anti-Supergroup Born Out of Memes and Friendship
L.S. Dunes don’t sound like a supergroup, and they certainly don’t want to be called a supergroup. But when they took to the Rise Stage early on a Friday afternoon to effectively kick off Riot Fest, one could be forgiven for mistaking them for that. While other stages saw audiences in the dozens under the midday Chicago sun, the debuting quintet amassed thousands of onlookers. As vocalist Anthony Green pointed out from the stage, it was a bigger crowd than just about any other band would have for their first show (including all of his so far), but that’s to be expected when the Circa Survive/Saosin/The Sound of Animals Fighting frontman joined forces with guitarists Frank Iero (My Chemical Romance) and Travis Stever (Coheed and Cambria) and the rhythm section from Thursday (drummer Tucker ...
Feid Is Making a Mark With Medellín-Made Reggaeton
With the breakthroughs of J Balvin, Maluma, and Karol G, Medellín, Colombia has become a hub for reggaeton music. Their frequent collaborator, Feid, has been keeping the world’s eyes on Medellín while putting his heartfelt touch on the genre that celebrates the city’s culture. After a year of performing around the world, Feid returned to his hometown earlier this month and made history as the first artist to sell out three consecutive concerts at the local arena, La Macarena. “The first concert I did was in La Macarena,” Feid tells SPIN from the terrace of his hotel overlooking Medellín. “J Balvin brought me out during his performance for his Energia concert [in 2016]. Now, we put everything into my shows. I just wanted to give them the best show. That’s my city. I had to put forth the bes...
Guy Pearce Saves All His Movie Scripts, and Other Insights Into His Process
Heads up for future film historians: Guy Pearce keeps the scripts for all his past projects on a shelf in his home, and they sound fascinating. “I end up sticking things all over the script, like a school project,” he tells Consequence via Zoom. “People laugh at me all the time about it, but I say to them, ‘Go into the art director’s room or go into the makeup trailer and look at all the pictures all around the walls of the world [we’re making].’ I need to create the world that we’re in on my script as well, like in the binder. Because it just keeps me in there. It’s great.” He explains his process like so: “I love visual stimulation. So if I can find images — if it’s a historical character then obviously there’s a lot of great historical stuff that I can plunk on the script as well. And t...
Lady Lamb Answers the Consequestionnaire: 15 Years of Staying True to Herself and Loving Sufjan Stevens
It’s Consequence’s 15th anniversary, and all month long we are featuring a series of retrospective features and essays encompassing our publication’s history — as well as the entertainment landscape at large. We’re also giving some of our past CoSigned artists a chance to look back at the last 15 years with our Consequestionnaire; today’s respondent is Lady Lamb. As a part of our Consequence: 15 Years of Sound celebration, we’ve made it a point to check in with stand-out artists that have received our endorsement from the last decade and a half. We sent out our Consequestionnaire to numerous Artists of the Month and CoSigns to get their perspectives on the past 15 years, as well as hear about how their career has changed over this time period. Today, we circle back with March 2011 CoS...
