Black Bird, starring Taron Egerton and the late Ray Liotta, premieres Friday on Apple TV+. It tells the true story of a convicted drug dealer, played by Egerton, who can go free if he gets a confession from a serial killer and finds out where his victims are buried. Egerton tells ABC Audio why the role was hard to pass up.
“It wasn’t something that I had done before and felt like, I guess, you know, the roles that I’m known for are all British roles,” he explains, adding “there was certainly an appeal in playing not just the kind of archetypal kind of American hero role, but like a real three dimensional, complex, nuanced character from a very specific part of the country.”
I Tonya‘s Paul Walter Hauser plays the serial killer whose confession Egerton is trying to obtain in the series. Hauser shares the secret to playing an effectively creepy character.
“You have to be willing to do an improvisational take or try something different without judging yourself because it might be brilliant and the editor might use it, and your self-doubt or your insecurity would stop you from giving your best work,” he shares. “You have to find the brilliance sometimes. You don’t just show up killing it. You got to find it most days.”
Asked whether the role gave him nightmares, Hauser says, “I have nightmares all the time, regardless of the content I’m making. So this is just like an extended nightmare where you get to live it throughout the day.”
Black Bird, starring Taron Egerton and the late Ray Liotta, premieres Friday on Apple TV+. It tells the true story of a convicted drug dealer, played by Egerton, who can go free if he gets a confession from a serial killer and finds out where his victims are buried. He tells ABC Audio why the role was hard to pass up.
“It wasn’t something that I had done before and felt like, I guess, you know, the roles that I’m known for are all British roles,” he explains. “And to, I mean there’s a lot more to it than that, but there was certainly an appeal in playing not just the kind of archetypal kind of American hero role, but like a real three dimensional, complex, nuanced character from a very specific part of the country.”
I Tonya‘s Paul Walter Hauser plays the serial killer whose confession Egerton is trying to obtain in the series, and Hauser shares the secret to playing an effectively creepy character.
“You have to be willing to do an improvisational take or try something different without judging yourself because it might be brilliant and the editor might use it, and your self-doubt or your insecurity would stop you from giving your best work,” he shares. “You have to find the brilliance sometimes. You don’t just show up killing it. You got to find it most days.”
Asked whether the role gave him nightmares, Hauser says, “I have nightmares all the time, regardless of the content I’m making. So this is just like an extended nightmare where you get to live it throughout the day.”
Panic! at the Disco is back on the charts with a “Vengeance.”
Brendon Urie‘s band has hit #1 on Billboard‘s Alternative Airplay ranking with the new single “Viva Las Vengeance.” Panic! previously led the chart twice before, with “Say Amen (Saturday Night)” and the crossover mega-hit “High Hopes.”
Having just dropped on June 1, “Viva Las Vengeance” took only five chart weeks to reach the top spot on Alternative Airplay. The last track to ascend the chart that quickly was Twenty One Pilots‘ “Shy Away,” which hit #1 in three weeks in 2021.
“Viva Las Vengeance” is the lead single and title track off the upcoming seventh Panic! album, which will be released August 19. It’s the follow-up to 2018’s Pray for the Wicked.
Panic! will launch a U.S. tour in support of Viva Las Vengeance in September.
Shawn Mendes says he is still healing after breaking up with girlfriend Camila Cabello, but is thankful his music will always be there for him.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinelreports that in a phone call with reporters, the Canadian star said his first post-breakup song, “When You’re Gone,” was “a kind of good description of how I was feeling a month after my relationship ended.”
He added, “My music is always going to be a representation of where I am. It’s a healing process for me to write about how I feel and put it into music. It’s always been something that’s really helped me grow as a person.”
Shawn and Camila dated for two years before calling it quits in November 2021.
Aside from creating new music, the “Stitches” singer is currently out on his first arena tour in three years, and he hopes his music is bringing comfort to his fans.
“There’s no way to avoid the kind of suffering that’s happened over the last couple of years,” said Shawn, adding that he views music as “cathartic” and “a direct line to the heart.”
There’s also something else Shawn is looking forward to: his big screen debut in Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile, for which he provides the voice of the titular smiling reptile.
“Seeing my voice kind of come through the face of a CGI crocodile was bizarre,” he said. “I think it’s going to be something I’m so proud of, especially as I get older.”
Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile arrives in theaters October 7.
On Thursday, Backstreet Boys announced they’ll release their long-awaited holiday album, A Very Backstreet Christmas, on October 14. Earlier this year, Backstreet’s Nick Carter told ABC Audio that not only does he think people will be impressed with the project, they’ll be “absolutely shocked.”
“It’s something that we have been working on for years, something that we’ve always wanted to do,” Nick said. “Christmas is a very special time for us as family … and for our families. And so, we have a lot of classic holiday songs … stuff that we’ve always listened to growing up … now we have our own versions of those [on the album].”
The album features classics like “I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” “Last Christmas” and “The Christmas Song,” as well as three originals. Nick said that because Christmas “is a special time,” he hopes that these new renditions of old songs will help them “become a part of” people’s holiday celebrations.
“We have had a couple Christmas songs, but not this kind of body of work,” Nick pointed out, adding that he thinks “people will be absolutely shocked” when they hear it.
“I know for a fact our vocals on the record are incredible,” he said. “The harmonies are unlike anybody else out there. Nobody else does harmonies like we do.”
Nick added, “We’re excited for people … to hear it for the first time. I think that people are going to be really impressed.”
The group is currently out on their DNA World Tour.
When rising rap star DreamDoll started rapping, it was mostly just for fun and games. The Bronx native said she got her start by making jokes or “cutting a**,” as New Yorkers would call it. Since hitting the hip-hop scene recently, DreamDoll’s career has seen rapid success. At the 2022 Essence Festival of Culture in New Orleans, ABC Audio caught up with the rapper to discuss her music journey thus far.
“I’ve been rapping since college. I used to do a lot of freestyles,” she said.
She went into detail about the on-and-off again relationship she’s had with rapping, her decision to start back up and her lead 2017 single, “Everything Nice.”
“And from there, I just kept doing it,” she said. “I either had to stop working in the clubs or take my music serious. And look where I am today.”
DreamDoll said she was proud to be a part of Essence Fest, the annual Black music and arts festival known as the “party with a purpose,” where she performed for the first time this year.
“I’m proud to be on the stage with legends and just to be a part of the culture,” she said.
During the four-day event, the 30-year-old rapper spoke on a panel about plastic surgery and shared her own experience.
She told ABC Audio that she opened up about“the stigma people have about plastic surgery and things that I got done and that if I regretted anything and the misconception people have of plastic surgery and how addicting it is.”
Riding the wave of her recent track “You know My body” with Capella Grey, DreamDoll said to stay tuned for new music on the way.
Luke Combs and his wife Nicole are proud new parents to a baby boy, Tex Lawrence, who joined the family on Father’s Day, June 19. Like any other parents to a newborn, they’re figuring it out as they go, with help from lots of advice from their friends, family and fellow country artists. But there’s one piece of advice Luke’s received that he says he’s taking with a grain of salt.
“The number-one thing I’ve heard is — gosh, what do they call it, a night nurse? That’s a thing I’ve heard about,” he recalls. “That’s a thing that I’ve heard about, which I was just completely unaware of that existing.”
According to WhatToExpect.com, a night nurse is a newborn care expert who helps with in-home care during the first few weeks of a baby’s life, specifically at night, so that exhausted new parents can get some much-needed rest. But Luke says he and Nicole haven’t hired one — at least, not yet.
“You know, I think we’re gonna give it a run for a while and just kind of do it on our own,” Luke explains.
“This child didn’t have a choice to be born. You know, it was our choice to bring him into the world,” the singer reasons. “So I think it would be super selfish of me to go, ‘Oh, now I don’t have time to do this thing.’ And I think trying to do that on our own is something that we’re looking forward to.”
Still, Luke admits that the tough realities of caring for a newborn might change his mind. “Maybe a month of no sleep will change my outlook on that. Who knows,” he admits.
The late Ronnie James Dio would’ve celebrated his 80th birthday on Sunday.
Dio was born Ronald James Padavona on July 10, 1942, and died of stomach cancer May 16, 2010. His career included fronting Black Sabbath after Ozzy Osbourne was fired in 1979 and forming his own, namesake band, Dio, releasing the classic album Holy Diver in 1983. Along the way, he popularized the iconic “metal horns” gesture.
In honor of the milestone occasion, Holy Diver has been reissued as a deluxe box set, including remastered and remixed audio, live recordings, outtakes and B-sides. For original Dio drummer Vinny Appice, the reissue allows him to reminisce about the “ball” he, Ronnie and the rest of the band had recording the now double-Platinum album.
“It was a fun time in everyone’s life, and that shows in the music,” Appice tells ABC Audio. “The music’s pretty kick-a**.”
For Appice, having fun recording an album was the most he expected out of the Holy Diver experience.
“I remember one of my drum techs saying, ‘It’s gonna go Platinum, man!'” Appice recalls. “I said, ‘Come on, nah’… And then sure enough.”
“Album comes out, we start playing theaters,” he continues. “Then about three months, four months later, we’re playing arenas. It’s the typical rock story.”
The remix for the Holy Diver reissue was done by Joe Barressi, who’s worked with bands including Tool and Slipknot. He worked from the original analog tapes to put a new spin on the audio, such as including an ending on the song “Holy Diver,” which just fades out on the original released recording.
“I don’t know what else [Barressi] might’ve found on those tapes,” Appice laughs. “Probably a lot of cursing and swearing.”
Journey‘s first new studio album in 11 years, Freedom, was released today.
The 15-track collection, which was recorded during the COVID-19 pandemic, is the first Journey album to feature drummer Narada Michael Walden, who also co-produced Freedom with guitarist Neal Schon and keyboardist Jonathan Cain.
Freedom also marks the return of bassist Randy Jackson, who previously played with Journey from 1985 to 1987. Walden and Jackson joined the band after longtime Journey drummer Steve Smith and bassist Ross Valory were fired in 2020.
“There’s a different strut to this record altogether,” Schon tells ABC Audio. “[M]any people probably can imagine that…replacing a whole rhythm section is gonna change the overall rhythm, feel in the band. And personally, I love it…I think it’s got a new vibe, and even some of the ballads are…coming from a different place than what we’ve done before.”
Freedom includes songs that sound like they could have come from various eras in Journey’s history, and features a mix of power ballads, hard-rocking tunes, sensitive love songs and even a funk-influenced track.
“I just think the album is very musical,” Neal maintains. “I feel like, for me, it goes back to maybe the Infinity era, when I first started writing with Steve Perry, to what we are now…and what we’re becoming.”
Schon says an important factor in the album’s sound was that, while most of the band contributed their parts remotely, he and Walden worked together laying down guitar and drums tracks live in the studio.
“I personally like [cutting] drums and guitar live…even if there’s no other instruments,” Neal says, “because it breathes new life. You know, there’s a lot of life to the music then.”
Here’s Freedom‘s full track list:
“Together We Run”
“Don’t Give Up on Us”
“Still Believe in Love”
“You Got the Best of Me”
“Live to Love Again”
“The Way We Used to Be”
“Come Away with Me”
“After Glow”
“Let It Rain”
“Holdin On”
“All Day and All Night”
“Don’t Go”
“United We Stand”
“Life Rolls On”
“Beautiful as You Are”
(DETROIT) — Sonja Bonnett and her family built their lives in a home a few blocks south of Eight Mile in northeastern Detroit. The family spent years dreaming of owning the property, but then a letter arrived that quickly tore that life apart.
“One day, I get a letter in the mail that says there’s a $5,000 tax debt,” said Bonnett.
In 2011, Bonnett and her family entered a contract to become full owners and made monthly payments that they thought were covering property tax. The Bonnett family soon discovered multiple years of unpaid property taxes.
Bonnett and her husband could not afford to pay those back taxes and, in 2017, the couple, along with their seven children, were forced out of their home.
“The trauma of losing the house, and the way I lost it, killed a lot of how I felt about the neighborhood and the house,” said Bonnett. “But I still care about the people.”
City records showed that the unpaid taxes owed on Bonnett’s home from 2012 and 2013 added up to less than $5,000. A 2020 investigation by the Detroit News estimated Detroit residents, like the Bonnetts, were overtaxed by $600 million from 2010 to 2016.
Based on estimates by the Detroit News investigation, Bonnett’s former home was overtaxed by more than $1,500 in 2012 and 2013.
For years the city of Detroit greatly over-assessed the value of Bonnett’s home and many others like it. From 2011 to 2015, one in four Detroit homes went into foreclosure because of failure to pay property tax, according to a 2018 study.
Alvin Horhn is the deputy CFO and assessor for the city of Detroit. According to city records, the assessed value of the Bonnetts’ home in 2011 was $22,838, but when the property was reassessed in 2017 – it fell to $10,4000 – less than half of what it was valued before.
“There is no question the city lost control of its assessment roll,” said Horhn.
At the time, Horhn said that the city didn’t have the resources for a citywide reappraisal. In 2013, the city filed for bankruptcy and reportedly $18 billion in debt.
“There’s 400,000 properties in the city of Detroit, over 200,000 houses. I would never tell anyone that every single one of them is valued correctly, but that’s why we have a review,” said Horhn.
According to Michigan’s state constitution, property cannot be assessed at more than 50% of its marketable value.
Bernadette Atuahene is a property law scholar who works with the Coalition for Property Tax Justice and is fighting to end over-assessments in Detroit and to get compensation for affected residents. She said her research found that 53% to 84% of Detroit homes were assessed in violation of that rule from 2009 to 2015.
“We find that the burden of these illegally inflated property taxes is being borne on the most vulnerable homeowners, the ones in the lowest valued homes,” said Atuahene.
While Detroit acknowledges the over-assessment problems in past years, the city told ABC News that the problem is no longer happening.
“There are no systemic over-assessments in this city. If I were to tell you that 95% of the assessment roll is correct, that’s still 5% [or] 20,000 houses that could possibly be overvalued,” said Horhn.
But Atuahene and other housing advocates would argue otherwise. A 2020 study from the University of Chicago found that while fewer Detroit homes were being assessed in violation of the constitution, the city’s lower-valued homes were still being over-assessed.
The problem is not unique to Detroit. A 2021 study found that property rates are 10%-13% higher for Black and Hispanic residents nationwide. In recent years, investigative reports have uncovered disproportionate assessments in Cook County, Illinois, and Philadelphia.
“Detroit is just ground zero for a national problem. We see these inflated property taxes. It’s a national racial justice issue that our country has yet to come to tackle with,” Atuahene said.
In 2020, Detroit proposed a plan offering benefits for homeowners affected between 2010 and 2013, including discounts for properties owned by the Detroit Land Bank, authority and priority access to affordable housing and city jobs. The plan was voted down by Detroit’s city council, with critics saying it didn’t go far enough.
“The city does not have the money to hand people cash. It’s against state law and the city is not going to do anything that could bring the FRC back in control of their finances,” said Horhn.
Residents like the Bonnetts said if the city can admit it was wrong, they have the obligation to make it right.
“I want the world to take a look at what’s going on here… When you talk to Detroiters who went through this, we want our money back,” she said. “Why am I just accepting whatever they can give me?”
