INTERVIEWS
Gojira on New LP Fortitude, Escaping Our ‘Collective Coma’
“We’re all drawn into ourselves — in a collective coma,” Joe Duplantier sings on “Born for One Thing,” the punishing centerpiece of Gojira’s seventh LP. That lyric is crucial to Fortitude, as the French prog/death metal band gaze outward (and occasionally inward) to critique the evils of consumerism and the world’s zombie-like apathy toward watching nature crumble. “Things are happening around us on a big scale: the [destruction of] the Amazon rainforest, the oceans getting drained, the ice caps melting,” the frontman tells SPIN. “All this stuff is pretty alarming. And also on a small scale: Sometimes you don’t know the name of your freaking neighbors. If you live in New York, you get on the subway and everybody’s on their phones. What’s happening? If you took somebody from 100 years ...
Dysphoria Dies at MAGFest: We Are the Union’s Reade Wolcott Comes Out As Trans
In the early days of April, Reade Wolcott entrusted me with something she has been keeping secret for years. “The number of people who know right now that I’m trans I can count on two hands,” she says over Zoom. We are separated by time zones and distance, she’s in L.A. while I’m in Toronto, and while we don’t know each other yet, we know each other’s shared struggle. We are both trans women, and while I have been out for a number of years, this is her coming out as a trans woman. Wolcott is the songwriter and vocalist for ska-punk band We Are the Union. Formed in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 2005, the band rose through the ranks of punk scenes throughout North America before taking a two-year hiatus in 2013, diving back in with a more earnest and open approach to the stories they told in their ...
BLOND:ISH on Her Goal to Eliminate Single-Use Plastic in the Music Industry
Canadian dance music producer Vivie-Ann Bakos, who performs under the moniker BLOND:ISH, and activist Camille Guitteau have come together to combat the environmental crisis enmeshed in our music festivals. While their company Bye Bye Plastic aims to eliminate plastic waste in the music industry, their newly initiated leadership program, Stay’ge Positive, gives DJs and musicians the tools to cultivate climate action confidence as part of their artistic careers. To kick off the launch of the Stay’ge Positive program on May 3rd, Bakos and Guitteau chatted with EDM.com to discuss the environmental issues present in the music industry and what their new initiative is doing to combat them. BLOND:ISH promotes her eco-friendly company Bye Bye Plastic. Bye Bye Plastic EDM.com: Can ...
Beyond the Boys’ Club: Nancy Wilson of Heart
<span class="localtime" data-ltformat="F j, Y | g:ia" data-lttime="2021-04-21T15:33:15+00:00“>April 21, 2021 | 11:33am ET 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, recently releasing the song “Eternal Way” under the moniker Upon Wings. This month’s piece features an interview with Nancy Wilson of Heart. Legendary Heart guitarist Nancy Wilson didn’t spend the past year waiting for the pandemic to end. Instead, she worked on her first-ever solo album, You and Me, which was largely written and recorded during lockdown. The 12-song LP...
MitiS Channels Inspiration from Quarantine on Sophomore Album: “It Was Easy to Feel Sad, Lost, or Confused”
Since first launching his project in 2012, MitiS has developed a loyal fanbase through his meticulous approach to electronic music production and emotional messages he shares within his music. The Pennsylvania native’s debut album ‘Til The End arrived alongside praise from both fans and critics alike. Since its release, MitiS has continued on a hot streak of new music ranging from 2019’s laid-back Life of Sin Series to his brilliant Shattered EP. On April 9th, MitiS released his sophomore album Lost on Seven Lions’ Ophelia Records imprint. The album features a number of previously released singles as well as a handful of brand new tunes. Among those fresh tracks are collaborations with Danni Carra, Rico & Miella, Luma, Notelle...
“Turn Hurt Into Art”: How Music Creation Has Helped Elohim Navigate Her Mental Health Journey
Over the course of her career, Elohim has made made it no secret that she’s struggled with her mental health. Using music as a means to vocalize these very real issues, the multi-faceted artist and acclaimed electropop producer stoically shares her experiences of anxiety and panic attacks with her fans. While she appears to be comfortable discussing these topics now, Elohim has not always been so open about her mental health journey. The release of “Xanax” in 2015 was the first time she spoke in such a candid manner about what she was going through—at a time when she felt truly alone. Following an incredible response from the vulnerable track, Elohim had an epiphany. “There are a lot of humans out there suffering from this too and that inspired me to keep talking about it,” she...
Greta Van Fleet Break Down New Album The Battle at Garden’s Gate Track by Track: Stream
<span class="localtime" data-ltformat="F j, Y | g:ia" data-lttime="2021-04-16T04:00:09+00:00“>April 16, 2021 | 12:00am ET In our Track by Track feature, artists guide listeners through each track on their latest release. Here, Greta Van Fleet pull back the curtain on the band’s new album, The Battle at Garden’s Gate. Greta Van Fleet experienced a meteoric rise after breaking out in 2017 with their single “Highway Tune” and two EPs, followed by their 2018 debut full-length album, Anthem of the Peaceful Army. The young Michigan rockers have now released their highly anticipated sophomore LP, The Battle at Garden’s Gate, providing Consequence of Sound with an exclusive track-by-track breakdown. The album finds Greta Van Fleet expanding beyond the hard...
How MxPx Found Livestream Success Through Their DIY Mentality and Punk Rock Roots
Few punk bands from the ‘90s have adjusted to the new livestream culture as well as MxPx has. As soon as things started shutting down due to the COVID-19 pandemic just over a year ago, frontman Mike Herrera started taking to Facebook Live to perform some acoustic tunes (which eventually became the Life in Quarantine double LP) and chat with fans. Six months later, the now fully independent band launched Between This World and the Next, a ticketed livestream concert series where fans could hear the big hits, deep cuts, and rarities from the band’s near-30-year career. But the next edition of Between This World and the Next will be a brand new experience for both the band and the fans. In addition to being hosted on SPIN’s Twitch channel on Friday, April 16 at 6:30 pm PT, the show will be fr...
How The Living Became Seattle’s Greatest Lost Band
If you haven’t heard of the Living, you’re not alone. The Seattle-based band formed in the early ’80s, recorded some songs in 1982 and that was that. Open and shut case, right? Not when you dig deeper. The quartet featured vocalist John Conte, bassist Todd Fleischman, drummer Greg Gilmore and 17-year-old guitarist Duff McKagan, who’d already established himself in the local scene by appearing on 45s by Fastbacks and the Vains. “The band was really a tight unit of guys,” McKagan remembers. “We had Todd Fleischman on bass, and he could beat up six guys at once, so we had the enforcer. We were really just good friends. When we put out an ad for a drummer, Greg Gilmore answered and came out from Gig Harbour. He opened me up to more prog rock stuff like King Crimson. I went to a King Crims...
The Beautiful Bleakness of T. Hardy Morris
The collapse is nigh. Everything means nothing. Superstructures blot out the sky. People shout invectives through N95s across divisions of understanding. The pandemic has rendered even the most quotidian errands potentially perilous. On top of it all, we are flattened to an austere mode of living, a kind that provides a springboard for the musings of T. Hardy Morris, the psych-folk singer-songwriter intent on finding some traces of hope within modern meaninglessness, now exacerbated by conditions of lockdown. Despairingly singing of the contemporary state of the world and of its sorrows and contradictions, Morris has a heartfelt incisiveness unchecked by vanity, one that gushes without fetters. And so, casting himself as the world’s mirror, his latest LP, The Digital Age of Rome, can...
Analysts: Printing currency could hurt economy
Analysts have expressed concerns over a recent claim that the federal government resorted to printing money to augment the monthly allocation to the three tiers of government, warning that it could heighten inflationary pressure with dire consequences for the country’s exchange rate and economy. The analysts, in separate interviews with newsmen, warned that a sustained policy of printing the currency, if not well managed, would hurt the economy. The concern came on the heels of recent revelation by Governor of Edo State, Mr. Godwin Obaseki, that due to the dwindling revenue in the face of declining oil revenue arising from the growing sources of alternative sustainable energy, the federal government had to print money to augment the amount available for sharing by the federal, state and lo...
‘None of Us Thought We’d Be Doing Thursday 20 Years Later’: Geoff Rickly on Two Decades of Full Collapse
On April 10, 2001, Thursday released Full Collapse on Victory Records. At the time, a handful of punk and alternative publications thought the New Jersey-based rockers might be on to something, but mainstream outlets like Rolling Stone and Pitchfork found it to be underwhelming and confusing. It sold under 1,000 copies the week of its release and caused an insurmountable divide between the band and the label. Just under a year later, Full Collapse landed on the Billboard 200 (peaking at No. 178) and Thursday had become undeniably one of the biggest influences on the rising emo scene that would soon take over the rock world. Their commercial success was just beginning, with “Understanding in a Car Crash” continuing to grow in popularity both within and beyond the Warped Tour ...
