It appears that Simon Gallup‘s departure from The Cure was short-lived.
Back in August, the bassist announced that he was “no longer a member” of the goth icons after 40 years in the band, adding that he was “fed up of betrayal.” Well, that relationship’s, ahem, disintegration, is seemingly now on the mend.
In a social media post first spotted by NME, and seen by ABC Audio, a commenter asks, “Is Simon still a member of The Cure?” Gallup then responds, “Yes I am.”
Given that Gallup, who played in The Cure from 1979 to 1982, and then again from 1984 to this year, is the band’s longest-tenured non-Robert Smith member, it did seem odd that his departure would be announced with such little fanfare via a personal Facebook post. Not only that, but neither Smith nor The Cure publicly commented on Gallup’s initial announcement.
Smith, by the way, previously called Gallup his “best friend” in a 2019 NME interview, adding that the bassist has been the “heart” of The Cure’s live band. Gallup was one of 10 Cure members to be inducted along with the band into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2019.
It’s been a lot longer than 30 seconds since we last heard new music from Thirty Seconds to Mars, but that changes today.
Jared Leto and company have collaborated with DJ and producer Illenium for a new song called “Wouldn’t Change a Thing.” The track is available now for digital download, and will also appear on the upcoming deluxe version of Illenium’s Fallen Embers album, due out October 22.
“Wouldn’t Change a Thing” is the first new tune from Thirty Seconds to Mars since their 2018 album AMERICA, which spawned the singles “Walk on Water,” “Dangerous Night” and “Rescue Me.”
Illenium, by the way, has previously worked with rock and alternative artists including Angels & Airwaves and I Prevail. He also earned a top-five alternative radio single with “Good Things Fall Apart,” featuring Jon Bellion.
Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters has tied the knot with his girlfriend of five years, Kamilah Chavis.
The British rock legend shared the happy announcement on Instagram, along with photos from the ceremony, which was reportedly held in New York’s The Hamptons. Waters titled the reveal, “I’m so happy, finally a keeper.”
The photos include snaps of the happy couple sharing kisses, cutting their cake, laughing together and, of course, photos of Chavis’ lace wedding dress.
Not much else is known about the couple’s nuptials.
In a 2018 interview, the 78-year-old Waters told Infobae, an Argentine media outlet, how he and his new bride first met and fell in love. “I actually met her at one of my concerts a couple of years ago. She worked in transportation. She was driving the car that was taking me,” the bassist said. “Something about her attracted me.”
Waters admitted that he made the first move and that he threw Chavis a compliment, which was, “Did someone ever tell you that you have beautiful cheekbones?”
It worked, and he recalled, “I saw a little reaction, and that was the beginning.”
This is Waters’ fifth marriage. He was previously married to Judith Trim, his childhood sweetheart, from 1969 to 1975, aristocrat Carolyne Christie from 1976 to 1992, actress Priscilla Phillips from 1992 to 2001 and to filmmaker Laurie Durning between 2012 and 2015.
Meghan Trainor is getting us into the Christmas spirit early.
The singer has released a cover of the classic holiday tune, “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.” The new track will be included on a deluxe edition of A Very Trainor Christmas, which will be available as a digital exclusive on October 29.
It’s one of three new additions on the album. The other two are a cover of the Darlene Love classic “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” and an original tune called “Christmas Coupon.”
“It’s Riley‘s first Christmas so naturally I had to add a few more tunes for this special season,” Meghan wrote about her baby boy, who was born in February of this year.
Meghan originally released A Very Trainor Christmas, her first Christmas album, last year.
Seal isn’t 17-year-old Leni Klum‘s biological father, but he says he most certainly is her dad.
Speaking to Entertainment Tonight, Seal opened up about their special bond and why walking the red carpet with Leni for the first time this week was “one of the proudest moments of my life.”
“It’s everything and it has always been like that, from the day I met her mother,” he remarked of their relationship. “[Heidi] was two weeks pregnant with this beautiful lady. We have always had that bond.”
Leni is the daughter of Heidi Klum and Flavio Briatore, an Italian businessman. After Klum and Seal wed in 2005, the Grammy winner officially adopted Leni. Although the power couple called it quits in 2014, the British singer says he has always maintained that special bond with his daughter.
Seal also opened up about how special it was for him to be able to support his brother, Jeymes Samuel, at the premiere of Jeymes’ directorial debut, The Harder They Fall, a Western that features an all-Black cast.
“There was a moment where we were standing together, taking a picture down there, and I looked to him and I got all teary. I said, ‘Wow, this is your moment,'” he shared. “He looked at me and he just knew what I meant by that. It was more than words could ever say.”
Seal, who assisted with the movie’s soundtrack, marveled over how incredible it was for him to walk a red carpet celebrating his brother’s work.
“We came from a blue-collar, working class area of London, fighting through all of the things that could potentially hold us back,” he reflected on their respective struggles. “To see him here today, on his moment, honestly, it is everything to me.”
Lance Bass and husband Michael Turchin are officially a family of four. On Thursday, the *NSYNC member happily revealed that their twins have finally arrived.
“The baby dragons have arrived!! I can not express how much love I feel right now,” Lance, 42, celebrated on Instagram, posting photos of the birth certificates. “Thank you for all the kind wishes. It meant a lot.”
And while the singer may have walked into fatherhood feeling confident, he hilariously revealed that he still has a lot to learn and frantically asked his followers, “Now, how do you change a diaper??! Ahhhhhhhh!”
And when sharing the delightful news to his personal Instagram, Michael, 34, may have given away why his husband is asking strangers on the internet about diaper duty.
“They’re pure perfection and yes that includes the dozens of poops we’ve already dealt with,” the visual artist laughed. “Our hearts our full!!!”
The couple, who wed in 2014, also revealed the names of their two bundles of joy: daughter Violet Betty and son Alexander James. Their birth certificates state the infants arrived just one minute apart on Wednesday, October 13.
Lance and Michael first revealed that they were going to become parents in June in an interview with People, where they shared the years of hardships they faced during their journey, which included IVF and a heartbreaking miscarriage in 2020.
Lance explained why he and Michael wanted to share their story, even the painful moments, telling People, “A lot of times I would believe that couples feel very alone in that situation. But to know that other people are going through the same exact thing, it’s really comforting.”
For those who’ve been wondering how Megan Thee Stallion puts the spice in her more-sensual tracks, wonder no more.
The “Savage” rapper was the latest guest on First We Feast’s Hot Ones and, while chowing down on a buffet of super-spicy wings, broke down how to make a good freak anthem. “First of all, you need to have that good bassline, that good drum pattern, so you can be on rhythm,” the Grammy winner explained. “You got to match the strokes to the drums. If you cannot match the stroke to the beat, it ain’t heat.”
“Then you just gotta have somebody that can really sang, Megan went on. “Not sing but SANG, because when somebody can sang, you really feel it in your soul,” she added and made a few gestures when demonstrating how a good vocal riff can set the mood.
Elsewhere, the 26-year-old opened up about working with snakes when filming the “WAP” music video with Cardi B — revealing that it was the “Up” rapper’s idea and she was dead-set on using real live serpents.
“I was like, ‘Okay, if Cardi B saying she wanted me to lay down with some snakes, I guess I got to lay down with the snakes with her a**,'” Megan laughed, adding that she met the snakes and bonded with one green serpent in particular and joked, “We was killing it the whole time.”
But, she admits while she and Cardi were “trying to be all sexy” in the snake pit, “we were scared as hell.”
Unsurprisingly, Meg can handle her hot sauce and didn’t even break a sweat after trying one with an ominous “TBA” Scoville rating.
More than four years after the arrival of his first EP, Ryan Hurd‘s first full-length album finally arrives today.
Though he’s previously written number-ones for Lady A, Luke Bryan, and Blake Shelton, the record features Ryan’s biggest hit as an artist so far, his nearly-top-five duet with his wife Maren Morris, “Chasing After You.”
And it’s titled… Pelago.
“It was called RH LP1 Sony Music Nashville for about three months,” Ryan laughs, perhaps hinting at some difficulty or delay in finding a name.
“Well, first of all, you have to ask me about it, so that’s a good thing,” he explains. “Second of all, I needed a word that rhymed with Chicago for my song ‘Coast,’ and I kind of used that as a placeholder thinking I made it up, and turns out, it’s actually a word in Italian and Latin that is actually what it sounds like.”
So Ryan’s unusual album title is actually a teaching moment.
“It’s a word that means ‘open sea,’ and it’s a word that means ‘overwhelming passion,'” he reveals. “So I thought that was just a really cool umbrella for all of these songs in this project.”
Physical copies and downloads of Pelago offer eleven new songs, all co-written by Ryan, save for “Chasing After You.” Streaming versions of the album also add four favorites, including “To a T” and “Diamonds or Twine.”
The 15-track collection follows a similar template to the band’s massively successful 1999 album, Supernatural, with guitar legend Carlos Santana and his group collaborating with guest artists from various musical genres.
At a recent New York City press event, Carlos reflected on collaborating with such a diverse array of musicians.
“We don’t leave anybody out,” he noted. “This is why Supernatural worked, and this is why Blessings and Miracles, I’m getting a lot of feedback [about] how [many] people identify with it. I don’t know the word genre. I don’t know what that means. I only play from the heart, for the heart.”
Like Supernatural, Blessings and Miracles finds Santana teaming up with Matchbox Twenty frontman Rob Thomas — this time on song called “Move” that, like its predecessor “Smooth,” blends melodic pop and rock with a Latin groove.
“This song…makes me realize energy is very welcome in our hearts, because it makes you feel like you’re 17 years old, with a lot of thirst for adventure,” Carlos said.
Another standout track on Blessings and Miracles is a cover of the Procol Harum classic “A Whiter Shade of Pale” featuring Steve Winwood.
Carlos revealed that he asked Winwood to record the cover with him a few years ago when they were both playing a concert at London’s Hyde Park.
“I said, ‘Hey, man, I want to do ‘Whiter Shade of Pale’ with you. You play Hammond organ and singing it,'” Carlos recalled, “‘but I want to do it ‘Spanish Harlem’ style…you know, put some real sex in it.'”
Carlos said the track was one of his favorites on the album, “because [Winwood’s] voice is so iconic.”
Here’s Blessings and Miracles full track list:
“Ghost of Future Pull”/”New Light”
“Santana Celebration”
“Rumbalero” (featuring Salvador Santana & Asdru Sierra)
“Joy” (Carlos Santana & Chris Stapleton)
“Move” (Carlos Santana, Rob Thomas, Zac Barnett & American Authors)
“A Whiter Shade of Pale” (featuring Steve Winwood)
“Break” (featuring Ally Brooke)
“She’s Fire” (Diane Warren, G-Eazy & Carlos Santana)
“Peace Power” (featuring Corey Glover)
“America for Sale” (featuring Kirk Hammett & Mark Osegueda)
“Breathing Underwater” (featuring Stella Santana, Avi Snow, MVCA)
“Mother Yes”
“Song for Cindy”
“Angel Choir” (featuring Gayle Moran Corea)/”All Together” (featuring Chick Corea)
“Ghost of Future Pull II”
It was his voice that got him in the door, but it might’ve been a timely feat of athleticism that cemented Daniel “DL” Laskiewicz as the new lead singer of Bad Wolves.
DL, who previously played guitar in the band The Acacia Strain, joined Bad Wolves earlier this year following the departure of former frontman Tommy Vext. Being he was longtime friends with guitarist Doc Coyle, the band connected with DL and sent him a trio of instrumentals to record his vocals over, and then invited him for an in-person rehearsal session.
As DL tells ABC Audio, it was during a moment after that rehearsal — a moment that will “burned in my mind forever,” he says — that he knew the fit was right.
“We were walking out into the parking lot of the rehearsal space,” DL recalls. “I don’t know if it was keys or something, but from across this long parking lot, [drummer] John [Boecklin] threw keys or whatever it was at me.”
“I just caught them with, like, two fingers,” he says. “The ex-football player in me just, you know, reacted.”
That little bit of chemistry seemed like a sign that DL and Bad Wolves were made for each other.
“Everybody just kind of stopped and looked at each other, like, ‘All right! Let’s go to dinner!'” DL says. “It was one of those moments…It was cool.”
Of course, it certainly helped that the rehearsal itself went well, too.
“The second that we were all finally in a room together with the songs and stuff, it just felt like a family reunion,” DL explains. “It felt really good, felt really natural.”
Bad Wolves’ first album with DL, Dear Monsters, arrives October 29. It features the lead single “Lifeline.”
