What goes together better than monster trucks and country music? How about monster trucks and LOCASH?
Preston Brust and Chris Lucas are set to play the halftime show at the Monster Jam World Finals XXII Saturday, July 1, at Nissan Stadium in Nashville. You can get all the ticket info at MonsterJam.com.
The “One Big Country Song” hitmakers have plenty on their plate between now and then. They’re set to release new music with the patriotic “Three Favorite Colors” before hitting the road on the Drunk or Dreaming Tour with Kane Brown and Dustin Lynch in the spring.
Billie Eilish is such a big fan of The Office that, based on an episode in the show’s fourth season, she was convinced U2 was actually from Scranton, Pennsylvania — not Ireland.
The singer appeared on the Office Ladies podcast, which is hosted by stars Angela Kinsey and Jenna Fischer. Billie said she watched the show repeatedly as a kid and, because of her age, a lot of jokes from Steve Carell flew over her head — the worst being the joke about U2.
Carell played Michael Scott, who regularly botched words, phrases and facts. In The Office‘s “Goodbye, Toby,” Michael asks if U2 is from Scranton, and his colleague Jim Halpert, played by John Krasinski, says yes.
Billie thought the show was stating a fact. So, when she performed in Ireland last June, she became really confused when she received flowers from the U2 frontman.
“I go, ‘Why would he send me something in Ireland? What does this have to do with him?’ And it was like … ‘Welcome to my hometown’ or something like that. But U2 is from Scranton! And I kept asking everyone like, ‘What is Bono doing sending me flowers all the way across the world? Why would he do that?'” she laughed.
“And my friends were like, ‘Billie, what are you talking about? They’re Irish.’ I was like, ‘No, they’re not,'” she added.
Billie admits Michael Scott was a bad influence on her growing up, especially when it came to her speech.
“I said many words wrong because I learned them from Michael Scott,” she confessed, adding she is now aware the show’s jokes were “written on purpose.”
Both Kinsey and Fischer told Billie to text them whenever she needs clarity between reality and a joke from The Office.
Lil Uzi Vert is facing a lawsuit that alleges he used unauthorized samples from Blackout‘s 1995 song “Dim Da Lights” in the track “Strawberry Peels.”
According to TMZ, Sun City Publishing filed the suit, noting the success of Uzi’s song, which has garnered more than 39 million Spotify streams and over 4 million YouTube plays. The publishing company is now seeking at least $1 million in damages, which is the amount they believe the song has generated.
“Strawberry Peels” appeared on the deluxe edition of Uzi’s Eternal Atake album. It features Young Thug and Gunna, who are also mentioned in the suit, alongside Atlantic Records, Generation Now and the song’s producer, Wheezy.
Metallica‘s “Master of Puppets” wasn’t the only metal song to become an unexpected hit in 2022. While Stranger Things was driving the 1986 thrasher back to the charts, Ghost‘s 2019 single “Mary on a Cross” gave the Swedish band their first appearance on the Billboard Hot 100 after going viral on TikTok.
In an interview with Metal Hammer, Tobias Forge calls the TikTok success of “Mary on a Cross” “just a giant bonus.”
“That was never something that we planned,” Forge says.
And, just like Metallica before them, Forge is welcoming any fans who discovered his band through TikTok to the Ghost community.
“We’ve made five records, a bunch of EPs, and I am glad that there seems to be a song that has a way to suck people in,” Forge says. “And if they go into our world and like it, there is plenty to find. If you like ‘Mary on a Cross,’ you can just jump on the train and go where we already are heading.”
Along with inspiring a TikTok trend, Ghost crept more into the mainstream in 2022 with a performance on ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live!, and their album Impera won Favorite Rock Album at the American Music Awards.
“It’s such a slow process that you don’t notice until a half year later when new fans come in and say, ‘I saw you on Kimmel’ or ‘I saw you with my dad,'” Forge says. “I wouldn’t say that being on Kimmel changed everything. It’s been slow, step-by-step, but it builds new branches onto the same tree and you keep growing higher.”
It seems Neal Schon has problems not just with his Journey bandmate Jonathan Cain, but with Cain’s wife, Paula White-Cain, as well.
The New York Post reports Schon sent White-Cain, a former spiritual adviser to Donald Trump, a cease-and-desist letter last month accusing her of accessing the band’s bank accounts without Schon knowing or giving his permission. The letter demanded she take herself off the accounts by December 27, although there’s no word on whether she actually did. He also demanded she stop “inserting” herself into the band’s business.
But White-Cain’s lawyer Alan Gutman calls Schon’s claims “nonsensical” and “entirely pretextual,” noting that Schon and Cain each own 50% of the band through a personal trust, and White-Cain is a co-trustee of her husband’s trust, so she is allowed to have access to it. Plus the lawyer adds Schon was fine with the arrangement for two years, and while Cain offered up a suggestion to resolve the issue, Schon “refuses to cooperate in any resolution.”
As previously reported, Schon and Cain have been in the news a lot lately because of their legal battles. The most recent incident had Schon sending a cease-and-desist letter to Cain over a performance of “Don’t Stop Believin’” at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. Schon also had an issue with Cain opening up an Amex credit card through the band’s company and not giving him access to it.
Wet Leg has premiered a new remix of “Chaise Longue.”
Recorded in collaboration with the psychedelic band Unknown Mortal Orchestra, the remix adds some more menacing sounds to the U.K. duo’s breakout, Mean Girls-referencing hit.
“[Unknown Moral Orchestra] have done a remix of ‘Chaise Longue’ which is kinda wild and kinda amazing,” Wet Leg says.
The original “Chaise Longue,” which appears on Wet Leg’s 2022 self-titled debut album, helped earn Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers a Best New Artist nomination at the 2023 Grammys. “Chaise Longue” is also up for Best Alternative Music Performance, while Wet Leg the album will compete for Best Alternative Music Album.
What is “Tulsa” spelled backward? Well, that’s a revelation Elle King delivers in the latest track from her first full-length country album.
“Tulsa is a song about doing someone wrong,” the “Drunk (And I Don’t Want to Go Home)” hitmaker explains.
“This is not about tearing women down but it’s about putting the blame on the wrongdoer,” Elle continues. “If a man is cheating on you, it’s not her fault because there are a million other girls he would do it with. And he’ll just cheat on her, too. It’s a song about uniting and not taking s*** from this real P.O.S.”
If you listen closely, you can hear Ashley McBryde helping out on background vocals, while John Osborne lends his guitar chops to the tune.
Come Get Your Wife arrives Friday, January 27, before Elle’s A-FREAKIN-MEN Tour kicks off February 14 in New Orleans.
If you missed the 2022 edition of New Kids on the Block‘s MixTape Tour, which also featured Salt-N-Pepa, En Vogue and Rick Astley, here’s some good news: You can watch it from home starting on Sunday.
MixTape Tour 2022 – Live From Philadelphia, a concert film documenting one of the tour stops, premieres Sunday, January 8, exclusively on the streaming platform VEEPS. It starts at 2 p.m. EST/11 a.m. PST, and tickets for the event are available now via mixtapetour.veeps.com.
In addition to the concert, the stream includes an exclusive documentary called Press Play: The Making of the Mixtape Tour. It’s a behind-the-scenes look at how the tour came together.
And there’s more: You can also get access to a free Q&A that’ll take place prior to the film’s premiere, at 1:30 p.m. EST/10:30 a.m. The New Kids will share stories from the tour and answer fans’ questions. Claim your free ticket at Mixtapetour.veeps.com.
In a statement, NKOTB’s Donnie Wahlberg says, “We had so much fun performing for our fans on The MixTape Tour, that we really didn’t want it to end. Partnering with VEEPS has given us a chance to bring us all together, to experience all the good times again, but in the comfort of our own homes.”
Is Kim Kardashian signaling her feud with Taylor Swift is finally over? One of her newest TikTok videos is raising eyebrows because of her song of choice.
Kim and her daughter North West posted a video of them dancing to a sped-up version of Taylor’s “Shake It Off” and mouthing along to the words.
This sparked renewed rumors Kim and Taylor ended the feud that was ignited in 2016 after Kim’s then-husband Kanye “Ye” West released “Famous,” a song that contained derogatory lyrics about Taylor. Both Ye and Kim claimed Taylor approved of the vulgar lyric while she vehemently denied it, so they released a video purportedly capturing her approving it over the phone.
That led to Taylor’s socials being flooded with snake emojis, an image she reclaimed for herself for her Reputation album. She was vindicated in 2020 when a video of the entire, unedited phone conversation leaked online.
Kim, who has since divorced Ye, began hinting the two mended fences when praising Taylor’s music during her 2021 appearance on the Honestly With Bari Weisspodcast.
Fans also believe Taylor signaled they’re back on good terms via her Midnights song “Vigilante S***,” which is about supporting a wife who “gets the house, gets the kids, gets the pride” and the Benz from a cheating husband.
Taylor sings, “She needed cold, hard proof, so I gave her some/ She had the envelope, where you think she got it from?” Swifties say the clues align because there are several reports claiming Ye cheated on Kim during their marriage.
While neither have confirmed the rumors, fans think Kim’s latest TikTok is her way of saying they finally buried the hatchet.
Luke Bryan‘s ready to saddle up for one of country music’s biggest events of the entire year. He’ll play the finals of the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo Sunday, March 19, at NRG Stadium.
As usual, the lineup is three weeks of the biggest names in music, with a particular emphasis on country. Parker McCollum kicks things off February 28, with Brooks & Dunn, Walker Hayes, Zac Brown Band, Jason Aldean, Jon Pardi, Ashley McBryde, Kenny Chesney, Chris Stapleton, Cody Johnson and Brad Paisley all taking the stage in subsequent days.
Superstars from the pop world, like New Kids on the Block, the Chainsmokers and Machine Gun Kelly, are also on the bill.
Tickets go on sale Thursday, January 12. Visit RodeoHouston.com for all the details.
