Keith Urban’s current single, “Wild Hearts,” is a love letter to the dreamers of the world, encouraging listeners to chase their passion, no matter how many people tell them it can’t be done.

That’s a very personal concept for the singer. “I had plenty of those people in my life that didn’t believe in me,” he admits. “And I probably found that fuel for my fire, even more so than the people who believed in me … Proving them wrong was great motivation.”

Specifically, he remembers something one older country artist told him at a festival in Australia, after he’d just come back from a writing trip to Nashville. The older artist approached him backstage and asked him why he’d been out of town.

“I said, ‘Oh, I’ve been in Nashville writing songs.’ I was so excited. And he looked at me and he says, ‘Yeah, you got to get it out of your system, don’t you?’” Keith recounts. “And I could have punched this guy square in the face. I was so angry at this condescending, jaded thing that this guy said to me.”

The comment hurt in the moment, but as he looks back, Keith acknowledges that he owes a debt of gratitude to that older artist and everyone else who told him he was wasting his time pursuing his musical career.

“I think about that guy a lot, and I’m grateful now that he gave me that fuel to burn on,” he says. “So that second verse [in ‘Wild Hearts’] is kind of a thank you to the people who say you can’t do it, because they give people like me a lot of fuel.”

Fuel indeed: “Wild Hearts” is currently in the top 5 and climbing on the country radio charts.

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After their 2014 song “I Love You So” blew up on TikTok, Chicago band The Walters, who’d split up in 2017, reunited, and now they’re close to wrapping up their first tour in five years.  The band tells ABC Audio that they feel lucky to have attracted a whole new audience.

“There’s a lot of new fans from TikTok,” says lead singer Luke Olson. “Honestly, when we went on our hiatus, we had a lot of young fans that are now a little older. So it’s been really exciting for us that we got blessed by getting all these new people.”

And while The Walters are hopeful that their new fans are enjoying their EP Try Again, which came out last month, Luke says he’s really excited at the prospect of them checking out the music they released before their split.

“Y’know, ‘I Love You So’ is a really great song,” Luke says. “The lyrics are very like…pretty much everyone can identify. [But] I think…if people are going to go and now check out the rest of our catalog, I think they’ll be  surprised and pleased. Because there’s other tracks that, y’know, a lot of people think are better than “I Love You So!'”

The Walters’ tour wraps in Los Angeles on June 9. What’s next? More music, says Luke.

“We’re trying to create easy-listening music, trying to bring back some sounds, but also have this modern thing,” he explains. “And that’s what we intend with this new EP and the music we continue to create.”

“We’re not trying to become some new band,” Luke adds. “We’re not, like, now going to change our sound and do some experimental thing…[We ]know what we like, we know what our fans like, and we just want to keep doing that.”

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While Memorial Day has come and gone, it’s not too late to prepare music playlists for upcoming summer holidays and events this year. In honor of June’s Black Music Month, and with the double whammy Juneteenth and Father’s Day on Sunday, June 19, here’s a list of a few popular hits that will most likely be played at a Black cookout. 

–“Before I Let Go” by Frankie Beverly & Maze is probably the song that gets everybody up & on the dance floor. This ’80s classic transcends every generation; some consider it the “Black Anthem.”

–“Before I Let Go” by Beyoncé is a more-than-suitable cover of the original, if for some reason the young crowd at the cookout thinks they’re too good for oldies. 

–“September” by Earth, Wind & Fire will certainly keep the party going. Grandparents might look for their grandson or daughter to “dance with me baby,” as they would say, while kicking their old-school two-step.

–“Never Too Much” by Luther Vandross is a hit most likely everyone knows the lyrics to — or maybe just the chorus — and will have the whole party chanting, “a thousand kisses from you is never too much.”

–“Candy” by Cameo comes on and the shoutin’ and groovin’ begins. This timeless ’80s classic is as important to the moms & dads as it is to Gen Z’s TikTok-loving kids. 

–“The Cupid Shuffle” is probably the #1 line dancing song that leads to folks putting their plates down so they can dance.

–“Do I Do” by Stevie Wonder might bring the romance out of family couples, and have aunts and uncles reminiscing about their love journey. 

–“Just Fine” by Mary J. Blige does just what the song says it will, makes you “wanna move,” makes you “wanna have fun.”

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The 1975 is coming back in 2022.

Earlier this year, the English band deleted all their social media profiles, which, as past 1975 album cycles have taught us, is usually a precursor to a new music announcement. In a tweet Wednesday, the group confirmed exactly that.

“Your new album. Your new era. Your old friends,” The 1975 wrote alongside a link to sign up for their email list, which promises to deliver “Album 5 news first.”

Meanwhile, The 1975’s label, Dirty Hit, shared a photo of a poster with the date July 7, suggesting that we’ll be hearing new music then.

The 1975’s most recent album is 2020’s Notes on a Conditional Form.

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Steve Nicks often posts heartfelt essays in response to world events, and the mass shooting in Uvalde, TX that left 19 children and two adults dead has inspired her latest missive.

On Facebook, Stevie writes, “My hope for this country is that the lawmakers just find a way to make buying an assault rifle more difficult.”

The Fleetwood Mac frontwoman continues, “When those guns go into the hands of obviously disturbed people, it gives them a sense of unbelievable power that they have never felt before. Power, used in a bad way, is the opposite of ‘power’ used in a good way. Once people have felt the power of those guns…they are addicted…So don’t give them that power. Make it really hard for them to get that gun.”

She emphasizes, “No one is trying to take away guns from people who get them for a good reason. Guns are not toys. Background checks are not that hard.”

Stevie then poses this question: “So, I ask you; do you want to go down in the history books as being responsible for these school shootings that will inevitably continue, or do you want to be remembered as the people who finally gathered together in unity and empathy as the people who stopped it[?]”

Saying she’s “dying inside for the loss of those children in Texas and their parents,” Stevie writes, “If I had gone to school one day when I was ten and been shot; my little body destroyed, I think my father would have done the same thing that that lovely teacher’s husband did. Gone home, sat down in a chair and died…of a broken heart.”

Two days after teacher Irma Garcia died in the shooting, her husband Joe suffered a fatal heart attack.

Steve ends by saying, “I am just so sad.”

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Here’s the church, and here’s “The Steeple.” Open the doors and see Halestorm‘s latest #1 hit.

Lzzy Hale and company’s current single has reached the top of Billboard‘s Mainstream Rock Airplay chart. It’s the sixth Halestorm tune to achieve that feat and the second from the group’s new album Back from the Dead, following the title track.

As Hale tells ABC Audio, both “Back from the Dead” and “The Steeple” are songs about “survival,” though “The Steeple” has more of an outward message.

“We came out with a banger with ‘Back from the Dead,’ and that was more first-person, me-talking-about-me,” Hale laughs. “So with ‘The Steeple’ I really wanted to put out that sense of community.”

As the preacher in “The Steeple,” Hale is reaching out to those who subscribe to the church of rock and the congregation of live shows.

“I wanted to remind everybody of … the big ‘why’ we go to shows, and the big ‘why’ that we all stand together,” Hale says.

“There is that feeling that happens [when] you’re in a crowd of people and you’re all singing the song together, and you’re standing shoulder to shoulder with people that are just like you,” she continues. “It’s a beautiful communion, and it’s a celebration of this thing, this intangible magic that is music.”

That magic, Hale has found, is irreplaceable.

“It’s the best feeling in the world, and that hole cannot be filled with anything else, as we discovered during lockdown,” Hale laughs. “There is nothing else that is like it.” 

Back from the Dead is out now.

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