INTERVIEWS
Josh Freese on Pulling Double Duty With Danny Elfman and 100 gecs at Coachella 2022: “It’s My Workaholic, ‘Try To Do it All’ Ethic”
Ed. Note: Head here to find our complete coverage of Coachella 2022. If you aren’t familiar with Josh Freese’s prolific career, ask the following question: What do Sting, DEVO, The Offspring, The Vandals, Nine Inch Nails, 100 gecs, and Danny Elfman have in common? They’ve all recorded, written, or toured with Josh Freese behind the drum kit at some point in their lengthy careers. If “drummer for the stars” is any metric of Freese’s success, then he’s one of the most successful drummers of all time. Last weekend at Coachella, Freese had quite the engagement on Saturday — performing with hyperpop icons 100 gecs around 6:00 p.m., and then again with composer and frontman Danny Elfman at 9:00 p.m. Such a hectic performance schedule is nothing new for Freese, who proudly takes on as m...
Why Bill Nighy Was Chosen to Succeed David Bowie For Showtime’s The Man Who Fell to Earth
The new Showtime series The Man Who Fell to Earth isn’t a remake — it continues the story of the cult classic Nicholas Roeg film, which starred David Bowie as Thomas Jerome Newton, a mysterious alien whose arrival on our planet ends in tragedy. So while the show starts decades after the film, with the arrival of a new titular man who’s fallen to Earth (Chiwetel Ejiofor), the original man is still there, albeit with a new face in veteran stage and screen actor Bill Nighy, beloved from roles in Love Actually, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Shaun of the Dead. Despite Bowie no longer being alive, there was never a question of continuing the story without the presence of Thomas Jerome Newton, according to co-creator Jenny Lumet. “He’s important — the first alien and the second alien that was alw...
“A Testament to My Resiliency”: Blunts & Blondes On His Debut Album and Cannabis’ Impact On His Life
Today, Blunts & Blondes released his debut album Story of a Stoner—and fittingly on 4/20, the de facto national holiday dedicated to stoners. “I just hope people accept it,” the electronic music star tells EDM.com. “I hope people like it. It’s not just EDM, it’s not just rave music. So I hope people take it for what it is and listen to it.” One of the most genuine cuts from the 13-track album is the confessional “4:30,” a languid tune featuring Cotis, who croons, “I just smoke all my days away. I don’t feel nothing, yeah. I just smoke all my pain away.” The song’s aching lyrics provide fans a glimpse into life following a breakup as its protagonist searches for redemption from someone they presumably hurt. Taking the lack of response to heart, they re...
Clairo Is Going Her Own Way
It was just two months ago that Claire Cottrill was serenading a New York City crowd in the middle of a makeshift living room. The affair would have been low-key except for the fact that the indie-rock star— who goes by Clairo—was performing for nearly 6,000 people at Radio City Music Hall. “I remember soundcheck was pretty unbelievable—just seeing the entire venue empty was was very intimidating,” Clairo says over the phone from Seattle ahead of her show at the Paramount Theatre. The night was a landmark moment for the 23-year-old musician who had released her sophomore album, Sling, nearly a year ago. “Coming into touring, it was really beautiful to be able to see how different songs affected people,” she explains. “It still shocks me when people know the words to some of these songs ev...
How Hatchie Reinvented Herself on Giving The World Away
Hatchie‘s debut album Keepsake was a beautifully dreamy, widescreen statement for the Australian artist, but throughout the album was a thick fog the enveloped the sweet surroundings. Now, for her glorious second album, Giving The World Away, out this Friday (April 22nd), the fog has cleared and revealed Hatchie in her truest form. Where Keepsake dabbled heavily in shoegaze and ’90s era dream pop, Giving The World Away doubles down hard, creating anthemic pop hooks out of homespun beats and powerful moments of crystalline rock. It’s a logical progression for Hatchie (born Harriette Pilbeam), but don’t think her carefully-calculated aesthetic takes away from the vulnerable truth of her lyrics—Hatchie is more open than ever before on Giving The World Away, and as she works to disma...
Judith Light on the Fascinating Scares of Shining Vale and Why She’s Not Opposed to Auditioning
In Starz’s critically well-received series Shining Vale, the “shit-com” (to quote co-creator Sharon Horgan’s invented term for the genre) blends horror and comedy for an unconventional story about a writer and mother (Courteney Cox) who thinks she’s seeing ghosts. Or she’s experiencing a mental breakdown? That’s just one of the show’s mysteries. The show’s stellar cast includes Cox, Greg Kinnear, Gus Birney, Merrin Dungey, Dylan Gage, and Mira Sorvino, but TV fans might especially spark to the inclusion of Judith Light, whose legendary career on screen and on stage has recently included a number of unforgettable performances in shows including Transparent and The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story. These days, as the veteran actress tells Consequence, she mostly gets off...
On Middling Age, Tim Kasher Doesn’t Always Want to Be a 47-Year-Old Rocker
Sitting in the mostly-enclosed former midcentury Firestone Tire shop that has since been transformed into All Season Brewing in Los Angeles, Tim Kasher wouldn’t be anyone’s first guess when picking who was the biggest rock star among the crowd. On a Friday afternoon filled with LA’s finest yoga pants, tight t-shirts and oversized sunglasses, Kasher’s long baggy sleeves and slim stature don’t really give off the appearance that he’s arguably one of the most influential indie songwriters of the century. But two successful bands (and a couple of less successful ones), five solo albums and 19 years since he forever shifted the indie/emo/art-rock landscape with Cursive’s The Ugly Organ, that’s exactly who Kasher is. Middling Age, the 47 year old’s latest solo work (out now via 15 Passenger Reco...
Anitta Brings Brazil to Coachella With Versions of Me
Anitta is taking over the world. Last month, Brazil’s resident superstar became the first artist from her country to hit No. 1 on Spotify’s Global 200 chart. Today, she’s set to make her live debut at Coachella. To add to her recent successes, Anitta also released her new album, Versions of Me, earlier this week. Across most of the 15 tracks, she’s embedded Brazil’s funk carioca sound into Latin and American-influenced pop songs, which reflect the two major markets she’s broken through from Rio de Janeiro. “I’ve been the first Brazilian to do so many things,” Anitta tells SPIN over Zoom between Coachella rehearsals. “It’s been crazy times for me. The first Brazilian to be No. 1 on Spotify’s Global chart and then the first Brazilian to be performing on the main stage of Coachella. I’m reall...
Julian Lennon on Covering “Imagine” For the First Time in Support of Ukraine: It Was ‘The Right Occasion”
With two new songs just out and a full album, JUDE, coming later this year, Julian Lennon promises that his widely lauded performance of his father’s “Imagine” during Global Citizen’s Stand Up for Ukraine! Social Media Rally on April 8th is not a harbinger of things to come in that direction. “I don’t have a hankering for anything else. I really don’t,” Lennon tells Consequence by Zoom from Los Angeles. “I have a hankering to get on with my own life and my own work.” He adds that the “Imagine” performance — which took place on a candle-lit set, accompanied only by Nuno Bettencourt (Extreme, Rihanna) on acoustic guitar — “was ‘done. Now that’s over with.’ I’ve had a few requests to sing it live, and I’m going, ‘No, I’ve done my bit. That’s it. Onward with my work and my life now.” But Lenno...
Roar Star Alison Brie on How GLOW Changed Her Career: “It Just Emboldened Me as a Person”
Alison Brie‘s resume is packed with notable roles, from her breakout performance as Trudy Campbell, Pete Campbell’s spirited and long-suffering wife on Mad Men, her charming six-season run on Community as plucky and eager Annie Edison, and voice work in BoJack Horseman and The LEGO Movie. But as she tells Consequence, perhaps the most seismic project of her career was in GLOW, the Netflix comedy which fictionalized the creation of the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling promotion from the 1980s. In the series, created by Liz Flahive and Carly Mensch, Brie played Ruth Wilder, one of the operation’s founding wrestlers and creative influences, in a series that met with its share of behind-the-scenes controversies with regard to its treatment of people of color, but was unabashedly feminist in its st...
Chino Moreno on Deftones’ Return to Touring: It’s “Going to Be Cathartic” to Scream and Sing Again
After two postponements due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Deftones are finally set to kick off their North American tour with Gojira. Singer Chino Moreno expects the long-awaited excursion to be a cathartic experience after a couple of years off the road. The tour was originally scheduled for Summer 2020, then postponed to Summer 2021, and finally rescheduled for Spring 2022. The outing kicks off tonight (April 14th) in Portland, Oregon, and runs through a May 28th show in Minneapolis, with tickets available via Ticketmaster. Heavy Consequence recently caught up with Moreno to discuss his side project ††† (Crosses), but he also took some time to share his feelings about Deftones’ highly anticipated return to the stage. “I hate to say this, because it sounds very spoiled, but since I was 15-16 ...
We Sat Down With 2022’s Most Viral Piece of Music Merchandise, Chris Farren’s The Cup
Chris Farren knows a lot of music and merchandising. First, he served as the frontman for the Florida-based punk act Fake Problems for nearly a decade. For the past eight years, he’s been releasing indie rock albums under his own name, building up a rabid fan base via his captivating online persona and social media presence. On the side, he’s also created merchandise that’s been embraced by the internet, most notably his The Smiths parody shirt, which became so popular that Jimmy Fallon presented one to Will Smith during an appearance on The Tonight Show in 2014. However, Farren has never created a piece of merch that’s also a sentient being… until now. To promote his latest release for Polyvinyl Records, “Death Don’t Wait” (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) — which is itself a score to ...
