Slayer‘s Kerry King has announced a new signature guitar with Dean Guitars.
The Kerry King Overlord is described as the “pinnacle of craftsmanship,” with an “all-new Dean design [that] comes with a remarkable level of precision and focus.”
To shred the Overlord yourself, you’ll have to part with $6,499. For more info, visit DeanGuitars.com.
King previously teamed up with Dean for the Kerry King V guitar, which first launched in 2019.
“I’m super stoked to be part of the Dean Guitars family,” King said of the collaboration. “This has been an insane long time coming! Together we’re going to create some amazing guitars that Dean, Slayer, and Kerry King fans will be as excited as I am to play them. It’s gonna be a wild ride for years to come!”
The 1988 Pixies album Surfer Rosa was very influential on Nirvana, and Kurt Cobain named it one of his favorite records. Speaking with ABC Audio, Pixies guitarist Joey Santiago recalls how he felt when that comparison was made.
“When people said it … or Kurt Cobain said that, I listened for it, and yeah, I see it,” Santiago shares. “I see the dynamics and the simple guitar line going over stuff that keeps going and going over different changes.”
But, as Santiago says, it’s not like he was the very first person to do that.
“I can’t take credit for all that,” Santiago says. “I got influenced by other people. It just gets passed along.”
Pixies’ impact on Nirvana, Santiago feels, is just a reflection of the nature of what music is.
“[Nirvana] had a good interpretation of it,” Santiago says. “I had a good interpretation of what George Harrison did and what [Jimi] Hendrix did.”
Pixies released their latest album, Doggerel, last September. They’ll launch a U.S. tour in support of the record in May.
Kelly Clarkson‘s having a full-circle moment: She released two new songs from her upcoming album, Chemistry, 24 hours before she marks the 20th anniversary of her very first album, Thankful.
Released on April 15, 2003 — six months after Kelly won the first season of American Idol — Thankful featured Kelly’s first non-Idol single, “Miss Independent.” It was co-written by Christina Aguilera, who originally planned to include it on her album Stripped, but didn’t finish it.
Kelly completed it with the other writers and recorded it herself, though Christina was reportedly upset about it. The song became a top 10 hit in the U.S. and around the world, and earned Kelly her first Grammy nomination for Best Female Pop Vocal performance. Allegedly, Christina stopped being upset when she ended up winning that category for “Beautiful.”
Thankful also includes “The Trouble with Love Is,” which appeared on the soundtrack of the hit 2003 film Love Actually, as well as her Idol coronation song “A Moment Like This” and its flip side, “Before Your Love.” Thankful debuted at #1 on the Billboard Top 200 and went Platinum in six weeks. It received positive reviews and proved Kelly had actual talent beyond the scope of American Idol.
As for Kelly’s new songs “Me”/”Mine,” they’re both addressed to the person who broke her heart — presumably her ex-husband, Brandon Blackstock.
In “Mine,” Kelly sings, “Go ahead and break my heart/ that’s fine/ so unkind … someone’s gonna show you how a heart can be used like you did mine.” In “Me,” she declares, “You are the reason I said goodbye … I don’t need to need somebody/ when I got me.”
There’s no release date yet for Chemistry, but Kelly’s Las Vegas residency begins in July.
Lauren Spencer Smith, who broke out on TikTok with her song “Fingers Crossed,” has teamed up with two female singers who also broke through on TikTok: “abcdefu” singer Gayle and “Numb Little Bug” artist Em Beihold. Their collaborative single “Fantasy” has just dropped, and as Em tells ABC Audio, “It’s fun to do it with friends.”
Em says she, Lauren and Gayle met last year at a radio show. “We were just kind of hanging out backstage and we started a group chat called the Powerpuff Girls, and started talking as friends, basically,” she says. “And then one day Lauren just texted us the song ‘Fantasy’ and she was like, ‘Hey, do you guys want to be on this?’ We’re like, ‘Yeah! The song’s amazing, of course!'”
“Then we got into the studio and wrote our own parts all together,” she adds. “And now it’s a thing and I’m so excited about it, ’cause I love them so much. So it’s fun to do it with friends.”
In a statement, Lauren says, “When writing ‘Fantasy,’ I wanted to capture how hard toxic relationships are and that coming out of those relationships can be so powerful. GAYLE and Em instantly connected with the topic and their verses helped take the song to another level.”
Gayle adds in a statement, “I was like ‘Wait, you want me and Em on this!?? My favorite human beings in one song?'”
The video for the song arrives later on Friday, April 14.
Em’s currently on tour with Lewis Capaldi, while Gayle is opening for Taylor Swift on her Eras Tour. “I’ve kinda been living vicariously, seeing all the TikToks of her,” Em says of Gayle’s gig. “And we talked a bit about it on [the video] set, and I’m just really proud of her.”
Hot on the heels of her Breakthrough Female Video of the Year win at the 2023 CMT Music Awards, Megan Moroney has earned her first ACM nomination for New Female Artist of the Year at the 58th ACM Awards.
Growing up, Megan never envisioned herself receiving these accolades and nods, let alone winning awards. After all, she was on track to be an accountant, not singing in front of thousands of fans.
“When I watched the CMT Awards, it was like, ‘Oh, Carrie Underwood is so pretty. I love her outfit.’ It was never like, ‘That’s going to be me one day,'” she tells ABC Audio. “Because I was like, ‘No, you’re going to college like your brother did. You’re going to be an accountant and you’re going to go do those people’s taxes.’ It was just not something that I ever thought was a thing.”
That’s why, looking back, Megan knows the one piece of advice she’d give her younger self.
“I wish I could go tell my younger self to dream bigger,” the “Tennessee Orange” singer reflects, before adding with gratitude, “This just means a lot to me because I never expected to be here on any circumstance.”
“Tennessee Orange” is the lead single from Megan’s debut album, Lucky, which drops May 5.
The 58th Academy of Country Music Awards, hosted by Dolly Parton and Garth Brooks, streams live on Amazon Prime Video May 11 at 8 p.m. ET.
A Black Lady Sketch Show is back on HBO with its fourth season, but this time around there are some new faces. Joining the cast are DaMya Gurley, Angel Laketa Moore and Tamara Jade, who creator Robin Thede says “were a seamless addition to the cast this year.”
“From the first day of rehearsals, they were like, ‘Let’s go, we watch the show, we know it inside and out,’ like, ‘We know to get in, where we fit in,'” she tells ABC Audio. “That’s what it takes to be a featured player on the show, like you’re not a series regular yet, but you have to come in and support the main cast … The cool thing was that throughout the process, they were each able to take on bigger roles and heavier leading roles because they just showed us so fast how good they were.”
Also different this go-round is the fact that “there aren’t a bunch of dark, black, myriad twists in the sketches.” “It’s … more in your face and more, like, just big characters, big jokes,” Robin says. “There’s joke after joke after joke. There’s not a lot of lines that aren’t good jokes, so it’s super joke heavy.”
She continues, “I just wanted people to be breathless, you know, when they’re watching it and just be like, ‘Ughh, there’s so many jokes, I can’t even catch them all,’ so I think for me that was a big thing.”
Robin says season 4 of the show “is bigger and broader than ever.”
In 1973, Neil Young and the Santa Monica Flyers, made up of Nils Lofgren, Ben Keith, Billy Talbot and Ralph Molina, hit the stage at the Rainbow Theatre in London for a show that went on to become a classic for fans. Although it’s finally getting an official release on April 14, if you believe Lofgren, at the time of the show the audience didn’t really love what they were experiencing.
The tour was in support of Neil’s album Tonight’s the Night, and Lofgren tells ABC Audio the record was “this otherworldly adventure in darkness and redemption.” He noted, “It was born of having to wrestle with a lot of our friends and heroes starting to die on us.”
The band would play the album in its entirety, and since fans didn’t know it yet, Lofgren says they weren’t happy. “Everyone was wondering when we were going to play ‘Cinnamon Girl’ or ‘Heart of Gold,'” he says. “And people got pissed off. They’d yell, they’d boo, they’d throw bottles.”
It took some time but folks eventually came to realize the special night they witnessed. Lofgren says as he’s played in England over the past 30 years there’s always at least one person who’ll apologize for “booing and yelling for hits” during that Rainbow concert, telling him, “’and now I realize I witnessed one of the greatest artistic nights of my life.’”
Somewhere Under the Rainbow will be available Friday on vinyl and CD at the Greedy Hand Store at Neil Young Archives, as well as at most music retailers.
Mrs. Maisel is ready for her curtain call. The Emmy-winning Amazon Prime Video comedyThe Marvelous Mrs. Maisel debuts the first three episodes of the fifth and final season Friday.
The show follows Miriam Maisel, played by Rachel Brosnahan, an unfulfilled 1950’s New York housewife who throws herself head first into the world of stand up comedy. Along the way she teams up with a down-on-her-luck manager, Susie Myerson, played by Alex Borstein, and the two try and forge a path in a world where women often weren’t welcome.
While fans may have wanted the series to go for longer, show co-creator Dan Palladino tells ABC Audio they knew it wasn’t going for 10 seasons.
“A lot of shows go past their expiration dates and I think fans always know that,” he explains.
Additionally, his fellow show creator and spouse Amy Sherman–Palladino admits that they’ve known how the show was going to end from day one.
“That ending was in the pitch, in the initial pitch for the show,” Sherman-Palladino shares, adding that it gave the duo a roadmap to follow.
“That’s the fun place, that’s the weird trajectory,” she says. “And then what are all the twists and turns that can get us there?”
Although Amy and Dan knew the ending, it’s still a bittersweet moment for the creators.
“We love the cast. We’re going to miss them,” says Palladino. “We want to work with them all separately again.”
Sherman-Palladino adds, “We have all their home information, so we know how to find them and we will be stalking them.”
As far as Sherman-Palladino’s hopes for the season ahead, “Our main goal this season was honestly just sticking the landing and making sure that her journey that she and Susie set out… barrel to a conclusion one way or another.”
(NEW YORK) — A new bill introduced in California could potentially do away with some additives that appear in ingredient lists of processed foods from candy to cereals.
Earlier this week, the California State Assembly health committee approved the landmark piece of legislation, AB 418 , which would prohibit brominated vegetable oil, potassium bromate, propylparaben, Red dye No. 3 and titanium dioxide in food products sold throughout the state.
If enacted, California would be the first state to impose such a prohibition.
With the narrow exception of Red No. 3 used in candied cherries, regulators in Europe previously banned the other four substances outright. In the U.S., such a move would set a precedent for processed food safety going forward.
The bill’s proponents have raised concerns over the potential adverse or negative health impacts, both short-term and long-term, of these chemicals.
“Californians shouldn’t have to worry that the food they buy in their neighborhood grocery store might be full of dangerous additives or toxic chemicals,” Democratic Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel, the legislation’s sponsor, said in a press release in February. “This bill will correct for a concerning lack of federal oversight and help protect our kids, public health, and the safety of our food supply.”
Because these chemicals exist in non-natural foods that Americans already eat, it’s important for consumers to understand the impact, but “not make themselves crazy” over their exposure, especially in small amounts, said Dr. Stephanie Widmer, an ABC News medical contributor, board-certified emergency medicine physician and medical toxicologist.
“These chemicals are all kind of in different foods and all exert different effects and different concerns — some of them are associated with neurological problems, some are reproductive problems, some have been linked to cancer. It really depends on the substance,” Widmer told “Good Morning America.”
“I don’t know if there is, for any of these things, a safe level,” she added, underscoring instead the importance of “moderation and variety in diet.”
According to Widmer, “there are tons of chemicals and substances that are in our foods that are not necessarily supposed to be there.”
“But we’re not necessarily being exposed to them in high amounts,” she said. “And you can’t go nuts trying to track down everything in your food.”
Widmer explained that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, while “trying to do everything they can, are just constantly playing a game of catch up” when it comes to tracking new substances coming onto the market.
“It’s nearly impossible to be able to regulate everything,” she added. “We’re learning more and more about the food we eat every day and they’re trying to do the right thing.”
Widmer said it was “unfortunate” that “a lot of these different additives and preservatives that can be harmful have ended up in our food supply,” but added, “I think [the FDA is] trying to stay on top of it as best they can — it’s almost overwhelming.”
Over 10,000 chemicals are allowed for use in food sold in the U.S., 99% of which were approved by the food and chemical industry, but not the agency tasked with ensuring the safety of America’s food supply.
Widmer’s biggest takeaway and advice to others, she said, is to “limit exposure as much as you can and when it comes to diet.”
“Try to just do things in moderation and have variety in your diet — as long as you’re not being exposed to the same thing over and over again in high quantities, you should be OK,” she said.
Potentially harmful effects of 5 food chemicals
Widmer broke down, at a basic level, what science-backed research has found as far as potential links to health problems for the five substances that would be banned under AB 418. At this time, while some evidence is stronger than others, there isn’t conclusive proof that any cause adverse health conditions for humans — just that there could be a risk.
Brominated vegetable oil: In high quantities, Widmer said, it has “often been linked to neurological changes, like balance problems and memory problems” in humans.
Potassium bromate: “Potassium bromate is found in certain soft drinks and can cause issues with hearing and kidney function,” Widmer said.
She noted that “there have been studies suggesting that it’s been linked to cancer in some animals in the laboratory,” but there isn’t research on that link in humans.
Propylparaben: “Propylparaben has been proposed to be a reproductive toxin [that] can cause hormonal dysregulation, which is concerning for some people — there [have] been documented studies where it caused earlier or delayed menstration,” Widmer said.
While the research has hinted at those links to disruptions in the hormone systems in humans, the evidence is weak and research is ongoing.
Red dye No. 3: Red No. 3, which “gives that reddish or pink color, like in those pink Peeps,” Widmer said, is banned in cosmetics as it “is a known carcinogen,” a substance capable of causing cancer. Research in California linked it to behavioral problems in children.
Titanium dioxide: This “is in sunscreen, but it’s also Skittles,” Widmer said, noting that it is a “possible carcinogen and food color additive that can be very irritating to mucous membranes like the eyes, nose and throat.”
She said it has also been “linked to cancer in rodents.” There is no research on that link in humans.
(PURVIS, Miss.) — For the first time this week, a Mississippi couple got to hold their baby quintuplets together and commemorate the milestone with a couple of precious family photographs.
Haylee and Shawn Ladner of Purvis, Mississippi, welcomed their five children — Adalyn Elizabeth, Everleigh Rose, Malley Kate, Magnolia Mae and Jake Easton — back in February but although they’ve been able to hold them individually, it wasn’t until this past Sunday when they could both cradle their little ones simultaneously.
“We got all the babies dressed up in their little Easter outfits and we held all of them at once and had one big group photo for them for their first Easter,” Shawn Ladner explained to “Good Morning America.”
“It was a little bit nerve-wracking because traditionally, you only hold one baby at a time,” the 26-year-old father continued. “So I had three, she had two, that was a little bit of a joke but we managed it fine and it was a really impactful moment to see all of our babies together again because that was the first time that they had all been together, right beside each other since they were in her womb. So it was a really cool moment.”
Haylee Ladner said it was “just so sweet” to see all of their kids, who she describes as “miracle babies,” interacting with each other.
“It’s definitely been miraculous, I would say, to see all five babies grow and not have any complications and to just be perfectly healthy and to be striving and thriving,” the 26-year-old mother told “GMA.”
The Ladner quintuplets — four identical girls and one boy — were conceived through intrauterine insemination or IUI, after Haylee and Shawn Ladner experienced a miscarriage and chemical pregnancy.
The babies were born on Feb. 16 at 28 weeks and 1 day gestation and were delivered by caesarean section at Wiser Hospital for Women and Infants at the University of Mississippi Medical Center. Since then, they have been in the neonatal intensive care unit at Children’s of Mississippi Hospital in Jackson.
Because the babies were born prematurely, they’ve had to receive care such as respiratory support, according to their parents, but have not had any major complications after birth.
“The biggest thing right now is the babies are still learning to bottle feed and so, as they work up their ability with bottle feedings, they’ll be able to be discharged,” Haylee Ladner said.
The Ladners said they’ve been soaking up their time with quintuplets.
“I love getting to be their mom and getting to be here with them every day and getting to see them learn new things and grow and it’s literally the greatest thing I’ve ever done in my entire life. I couldn’t be any happier,” Haylee Ladner said.
Shawn Ladner, who works as a maintenance mechanic, added, “It’s been amazing really, even through all of the ups and down. I had to go back to work so I’ve been traveling back and forth to come up and see the babies … It made me so happy that they’ve been doing so good.”
As their quintuplets continue to grow, the Ladners say they plan on documenting and sharing all the noteworthy and special moments through their new “5 Little Ladners” YouTube channel.
