“I still get the feeling that everyone’s pissed off and frustrated with us because we don’t sound like we did in 1993,” Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo told me on April 13, 2002. Going through one of the most tumultuous periods of its career, the bandmembers – who had recently fired their manager, and were bucking their PR and A&R reps at Geffen – had just “reclaimed control of ours lives,” in the words of Cuomo. Continue reading
In light of Weezer’s new album, Hurley, plopping earlier this week, here’s a look back at a Maladroit-era interview with guitarist Brian Bell and bassist Scott Shriner. Previously unavailable online, it was conducted in February 2002. Continue reading
Keeping the Superchunk momentum going after yesterday’s release of Majesty Shredding, here’s another vintage interview previously unavailable online. This one was conducted about nine years ago and primarily revolves around their penultimate record, Here’s to Shutting Up. Continue reading
With the music-business climate perhaps more rotten than ever, there’s a growing tendency to romanticize the past. But it’s easy to forget the challenges faced by indie-rock bands and labels prior to the dawn of the Internet. Or, in the case of Merge Records, prior to the dawn of the Arcade Fire. Continue reading
Amid the increasingly incendiary debate over Islam in America, here’s a look back at a related interview I conducted with Steve Earle in 2004. In the article, now online for the first time, he admitted his previous ignorance about the religion and stressed the importance of understanding it, particularly in the wake of 9/11. He also criticized then-President George W. Bush – but admitted that Condoleeza Rice was “kinda hot.” Continue reading
Here is my recent Herald-Tribune interview with the remarkably down-to-earth frontman.
I recently gabbed with Earth, Wind & Fire drummer Ralph Johnson about music … and karate … and flying airplanes … and …
Go here for the Herald-Tribune piece.
Here’s something hot off the press: My recent interview with Nikki Monniger, bassist for the Silversun Pickups. She spoke with me about touring with Against Me! and Snow Patrol, playing a gig on St. Patrick’s Day a few years back – and how life hasn’t really changed for her, despite the band’s huge (and hugely unanticipated) success.
The piece just went up on the Sarasota Herald-Tribune site – right here.
Naturally, yesterday’s post about Geronimo! – a new band out of Rockford, Illinois – brought back fond memories of the city’s principal rock export: Cheap Trick. Seems like a good-enough time to dust off a years-old interview with Bun E. Carlos. Continue reading
So the B-52s, Lady Gaga and an alien named Mel Moron walk into a cosmic cantina …
Welcome to Fred Schneider’s universe. In an interview conducted with the Bad Penny, he also spoke – at times humorously, at times seriously – about bloody Christmas songs, shoplifting a ham, avoiding cancer and, maybe equally important, avoiding the tour bus. Continue reading
The Bad Penny (beta) 