INTERVIEWS
HAIM’s Este Haim on Teaming with Fender and Proving People Wrong
The central thesis of HAIM’s cheekily titled third record, Women in Music Pt. III, which came out this summer, appears on the track “Man from the Magazine”. After quoting a sexist interview question that came from a male journalist, the song’s second verse goes: “Man from the music shop, I drove too far/ For you to hand me that starter guitar/ ‘Hey, girl, why don’t you play a few bars?’/ Oh, what’s left to prove?” HAIM, a Los Angeles-based rock group of three multi-instrumentalist sisters that has been referred to as a “girl band” too many times to count, shouldn’t have to prove anything. But, if they did, a spot in a Fender campaign might seal the deal. “I guess the only thing that I can do is just keep proving people wrong,” says HAIM’s bass player Este Haim, who stars in Fender’s latest...
Myles Kennedy Talks New Alter Bridge EP, Solo Music, Slash, and the Pandemic’s Effect on the Music Industry
Myles Kennedy, photo by Antonio Marino Jr. Alter Bridge were into the touring cycle for their 2019 album, Walk the Sky, when the COVID-19 pandemic shut down their plans for 2020. With no concerts on the horizon, band members Myles Kennedy, Mark Tremonti, Scott Phillips and Brian Marshall decided to release a live EP from their most recent tour stops, as well as record a new studio track, “Last Rites”. The band’s Walk the Sky 2.0 EP has just arrived, and the collection features six live performance along with “Last Rites”. The studio track was conceived during the Walk the Sky sessions, but was was completed and recorded during the pandemic. Kennedy sat down with Heavy Consequence to talk about the new EP, as well as the status of his upcoming sophomore solo album, the effect of the pandemi...
Heavy Culture: Living Colour on Their Upbringings, Pandemic Life, and Getting Out the Vote
Heavy Culture is a monthly column from journalist Liz Ramanand, focusing on artists of different cultural backgrounds in heavy music as they offer their perspectives on race, society, and more as it intersects with and affects their music. The latest installment of this column features an interview with the Living Colour drummer Will Calhoun, guitarist Vernon Reid and bassist Doug Wimbish. Since 1985, Living Colour have blended rock, metal, and blues to form a sound all their own, inspiring many artists along the way. This year, the rock pioneers are celebrating 30 years of their sophomore album, Time’s Up, which yielded such hits as “Type”, “Love Rears Its Ugly Head”, and “Elvis Is Dead”. This edition of “Heavy Culture” spans several months, as we first caught up with the members of Livin...
Godfall and Composer Ben MacDougall Welcome PS5 Players to the Next Generation
Of all the titles releasing for the next-generation consoles next week, few have as much excitement and mystery built around them as Godfall. The title developed by Counterplay Games and published by Gearbox (who know a thing or two about revolutionary loot-based games given their history with the Borderlands series) was actually the first PlayStation 5 title to be announced, and it’s also one of the only new IPs launching among a lineup packed with familiar faces. A combat-heavy game set in an unknown fantasy universe, Godfall might face the biggest challenges of any launch week title compared to known commodities like Assassin’s Creed, Call of Duty, Yakuza, Watch Dogs and Spider-Man — but it also has arguably the most room to impress unsuspecting gamers. As a brand new title with no pres...
“I Never Intended to Be an Artist”: Julian Jordan Opens Up About His Career in Dance Music
Julian Jordan is a Dutch DJ and producer who has become a household name within the world of house music. He’s released a surfeit of festival anthems on renowned EDM labels such as Spinnin’ Records and DOORN Records. He’s now officially signed to Martin Garrix’s STMPD RCRDS alongside label members Seth Hills, Dubvision, and Matisse & Sadko, among others. Julian Jordan’s sound stands out amongst other house music heavyweights due to its sheer power, energy, and relentlessness that prowls throughout. His most recent release with TITUS, “Badboy,” is a paramount example of that sonic flair. The track blends trap, hip-hop, rap, and future house in a mesmerizing manner. In an exclusive video interview on the When Life Hands You Lennons podcast, Jordan sat down to chat about his new samp...
Tori Amos: Loud and Clear
Far out on the rugged English countryside of Cornwall, surrounded by the bright blue Atlantic and the nearby Celtic Sea, known for its powerful wind and stunning beauty, lives a woman almost otherworldly. American born, before the age of three she’d already found her life in music, her gift for the piano so immense and so palpable it earned her acceptance into an exclusive conservatory, at the time the youngest child ever admitted, at the age of five. Her father, a man of God who preached His word, had a vision for his daughter: She was to be the best, the brightest and perform at the greatest music halls — all by the age of 13. The girl had to get to work. And she did. But there was a fire inside her that refused to conform. In her father’s words, she would deny “God’s p...
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Getter Returns With Experimental Six-Track EP, “NAPALM”: “It’s My Mind on a Canvas” [Interview]
If there’s one artist in electronic music who knows how to be bold and unapologetic with their releases, it’s Getter. From face-melting bass and trap sounds to melodic, nuanced songs, the producer has done it all. Now, with the release of his latest EP, NAPALM, out today his own Shred Collective banner, Getter has once again proven his dedication to putting out whatever music he’s feeling in the moment—and it’s certainly paid off. While NAPALM is composed of less than 15 minutes of music, its six tracks are compelling and magnetic, demanding attention with each song’s heavy punch of experimental sonics and idiosyncratic character. The previously released “BAD ACID,” with its cyberpunk-infused trap, and “ADHD,” the s...
Saves the Day and Senses Fail Reanimate Misfits Classics on Through Being Ghoul
If you were bummed about having to cancel your Halloween plans due to COVID-19 this year, Saves the Day and Senses Fail have a little surprise to lift your spooky spirits. The appropriately named Through Being Ghoul (with perfect album artwork to match) is a four-song split EP between the two bands, with lead singers and band ringleaders Chris Conley and Buddy Nielsen putting their own unique spin on each of their two tracks. The blend of horror-punk and emo/post-hardcore sensibilities works surprisingly well, with each of the artists channeling their inner Danzig while still keeping with the sound fans expect from their decades-long careers. Clocking in at just under 7.5 minutes (which is probably about right for most combinations of four Misfits songs) the surprise drop of Through Being ...
Mel Brooks Revisits The Twelve Chairs for Its 50th Anniversary: “It’s One of My Top Favorites”
Comedy and music go hand in hand. Always. Mel Brooks knows how essential this is. He used to be a drummer, after all. Back in his teenage years, he was a student of the great drummer Buddy Rich. There’s a fundamental rhythm to comedy that oftentimes gets overlooked. If the timing of the musicality is off, then the comedy falls flat. That’s why, in so many of Brooks’ films, you will see elements of music. Whether the characters themselves are breaking out into song, or he has composed a title song, or the dialogue itself is particularly snappy and hits you over the head before you even realize what the hell just happened, it’s all in the same family. You cannot have good comedy without some form of music being present. That’s why Mel Brooks is, in some ways, as much a musician as he is a co...
Puscifer’s Maynard James Keenan and Mat Mitchell on Existential Reckoning, Alien Abduction, and More
In the midst of a pandemic and a truly bizarre year, it somehow feels like an ideal time for Puscifer to release a new album. The experimental rock act is back with a new LP, Existential Reckoning, and it’s a fitting document of the times, even if that wasn’t intentional. Led by a core of Maynard James Keenan (Tool), Mat Mitchell, and Carina Round, Puscifer have often thrown out the rulebook when it comes to rock ‘n’ roll. Each album is surrounded by eccentric characters, while the music is equally unconventional. Existential Reckoning is no exception, picking up on the story of the fictional characters Billy D (apparently now abducted by aliens) and his wife, Hildy Berger, as it had left off with 2015’s Money Shot. The new album is shrouded in a cloud of alien activity, from its init...
The Future is Female: Inside “Underplayed,” A New Documentary on Gender Inequity in EDM
In 2017 and 2018, the momentum of the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements swelled to an ineluctable peak. The entertainment industry came to a screeching halt as film, television and music production companies reckoned with the blatant sexism rampant throughout their workplaces—and the dangerous circumstances such inequity can produce. The spotlight is now turning to EDM with the release of a new feature-length documentary called Underplayed. Featuring interviews with women and several male allies working in all aspects of the industry, including sound engineers, producers, journalists and major artists, the film offers timely insights into just how much work is left to be done in electronic music. Of 2019’s top 100 DJs, only five were women, according to the film̵...
Puscifer: Court Jesters of the Apocalypse
Feel like the COVID-19 era has been lacking a stone-cold jam to put some rhythm in your step as you nervously pace around your dwelling during self-isolation? Rejoice; after a five-year hiatus, Puscifer—the electro-rock side project of Tool singer Maynard James Keenan— is back with a new album, Existential Reckoning, and a lead single “Apocalyptical,” that’s infectious enough to make you want to dance the blight away and ponderous enough to make your mind work up a sweat while doing so. Though Existential Reckoning began to take form prior to the pandemic — Keenan notes that the band began “chipping away” at the new material in late 2018 —”Apocalyptical,” in particular, touches on the elephant in the room both coincidentally and otherwise. The track itself marries a weighty, sharp-an...
