Twenty One Pilots would’ve probably liked an extra 21 degrees during their first concert of 2022.
The “Stressed Out” duo took the stage in Indianapolis for the outdoor show this past weekend, where temperatures dropped to below-freezing levels. In a newly released recap video of the show, we see Tyler Joseph prepare for the cold by trying on one of his signature ski masks.
Drummer Josh Dun, however, was undeterred by the cold, and still took off his shirt for the performance.
“The first show of 2022 was outside in the 20 [degree] chill of Indianapolis,” reads the recap video’s caption. “Wasn’t cold enough to keep Josh’s shirt on his back, though.”
Ironically, the Indianapolis show was not part of Twenty One Pilots’ upcoming Icy tour, named after their 2021 album, Scaled and Icy. The Icy tour is set to kick off August 18 in Minneapolis, when it will — hopefully — be much warmer.
the first show of 2022 was outside in the 20° chill of indianapolis. wasn’t cold enough to keep josh’s shirt on his back, though. pic.twitter.com/NajOxol0wG
Rob Thomas has said that when he and Matchbox Twenty launch their twice-delayed tour this May, they’ll have some new music to perform. But now Rob says fans shouldn’t expect anything a new album from the band, which hasn’t released a full-length project since 2012.
“Right before the holidays, the guys were in New York at the studio,” he tells Smashing Interviews magazine. “None of us really had the time or emotional bandwidth to put together an entire album in the way we’d want to put together whole record.”
So instead, Rob says, they’ll just do something on a smaller scale.
“So we’re just going to put out probably just a four-song EP [to have] some new music for fans and stuff to play live,” he explains. “It’s just not about going out to support a whole record right now…like going out and doing all the TV shows and all that stuff. It seems like a lot more fun to have a song out and let the tour be the promotion for it.”
Matchbox Twenty’s North American tour with The Wallflowers gets under way May 17 in Vancouver and is set to wrap up in mid-August.
Meanwhile, Rob says he’s got an entire solo album ready to go — which he’s back-burnered this year in favor of doing Matchbox stuff — while “Move,” his 2021 reunion single with his “Smooth” buddy Carlos Santana, is still on the radio. Rob reveals that after Carlos unexpectedly had heart surgery in November, he sent the legendary guitarist a special “get-well” present.
“I sent him this box set. It was like the 100 greatest DVDs in Warner Bros. history,” he laughs. “It was all these movies from the 1930s until today…So I sent him that to help him recuperate.”
The video for “When I’m Gone,” Katy Perry‘s new collaboration with Swedish DJ/producer Alesso, debuted Monday night on ESPN during the College Football Playoff National Championship. The clip features Katy performing complicated choreography while rocking a number of super-sexy looks, and Alesso says deserves serious props for pulling it off.
“Dance music is what I do, so I love to see dancing in music videos, and she nailed it, she worked so hard for it,” Alesso tells ABC Audio. “I had my little part in it and I got to do a small cameo, which was fun. But she’s definitely the star in the video. And to come back after having a baby and doing that performance, it’s huge, so, [I’m] very thankful and a lot of respect to her.”
Alesso adds that premiering the video the way they did made a huge impression.
“The reaction has been incredible. Obviously, it’s a huge deal,” he says, adding, “The impactthese games have, and how many people are watching, it’s crazy! And so it was a huge honor and it was just so much fun to to be a part of it in a little way?”
Katy and Alesso first started working on “When I’m Gone” more than a year ago, when Katy realized it’d be a great song to put in her newly launched Las Vegas residency PLAY.
“We had such a vibe when we recorded the song, and it was a fun process, we both…were really excited,” recalls Alesso. “It’s been a minute [since] you heard a record like this with a big chorus and the big club beat.”
“So yeah, so far the support’s been amazing,” says Alesso, who plans to check out Katy’s residency “for sure” the next time they’re both in Vegas.
(LONDON) — Magawa, a rat credited with finding over 100 landmines and explosives in Cambodia, is dead at age 8.
The African giant pouched male rat was the most successful landmine detecting rat for the nonprofit APOPO — a Tanzania-based group that trains the species to detect landmines and tuberculosis — dubbing them “HeroRATs.”
Magawa won a People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals Gold Medal — the highest honor given to heroic animals by the U.K.-based veterinary charity — for his work in Cambodia in 2020. According to APOPO, Magawa “passed away peacefully this weekend,” having recently celebrated his birthday.
Magawa retired last year after spending four years discovering explosives with his incredible sense of smell.
African giant pouched rats are larger than the average pet rat, but are not heavy enough to set off most landmines by walking over them.
With 60 million people in 59 countries affected by uncleared landmines, training animals like Magawa can improve efficiency and cut costs in a decades-long battle to clear landmines from past conflict zones, APOPO says.
“All of us at APOPO are feeling the loss of Magawa and we are grateful for the incredible work he’s done,” the nonprofit said on its website. “During his career, Magawa found over 100 landmines and other explosives, making him APOPO’s most successful HeroRAT to date. His contribution allows communities in Cambodia to live, work, and play; without fear of losing life or limb.”
10 Years has announced a U.S. headlining tour set for this spring.
The outing will launch on March 14 in Pittsburgh, and will wrap up April 28 in Harrison, Ohio. Tickets go on sale this Friday, January 14, at 10 a.m. local time.
During the tour, 10 Years will also play their special Fan Summit concert, taking place April 8 in Las Vegas. That show will feature a performance of the “Wasteland” band’s 2010 album Feeding the Wolves in its entirety.
For the full list of 10 Years tour dates and all ticket info, visit 10YearsMusic.com.
In addition to the tour news, 10 Years has premiered the video for “Deja Vu,” a song off the group’s latest album, Violent Allies. You can watch the clip streaming now on YouTube.
Violent Allies, 10 Years’ ninth studio album, was released in 2020. It includes the singles “The Shift” and “The Unknown.”
The Rolling Stones, in conjunction with Universal Music Group’s merch company Bravado, have officially sanctioned a new line of high-quality headphones produced in partnership by the high-fidelity audio-device company V-MODA and musical-instrument manufacturers Roland.
The Crossfade 2 Wireless: Rolling Stones Edition over-ear headphones are available in three versions, each featuring a different variation of the band’s famous tongue-and-lips logo on the ear pieces — “Classic Licks,” “No Filter” and “Tattoo You.”
The headphones offer multi-device paring ability, and can be used with both analog and digital devices, including smartphones, computers, turntables, CD players and more. Features of the headphones include large memory foam ear cushions, a sturdy but flexible headband, and the ability to be folded into a small case.
A fourth design will be available in early 2022 exclusively at The Rolling Stones’ RS No.9 Carnaby store in London, and will feature the shop’s updated variant of the band’s logo.
The headphones are being sold for a list price of $279. For more info, visit V-MODA.com.
“We are thrilled for the Rolling Stones to partner with V-MODA and Roland in this category as their world-renowned premium product aligns with the world’s most recognized rock and roll band,” says Bravado executive Frank Bartolotta.
(WASHINGTON) — The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack issued three new subpoenas on Tuesday to former Trump White House aides and associates, including a speechwriter who helped craft former President Donald Trump’s speech to supporters ahead of the Capitol riot.
The panel has subpoenaed GOP operatives Arthur Schwartz and Andrew Surabian, along with Trump White House speechwriter Ross Worthington.
“The Select Committee is seeking information from individuals who were involved with the rally at the Ellipse. Protests on that day escalated into an attack on our democracy,” Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said in a statement. “We have reason to believe the individuals we’ve subpoenaed today have relevant information and we expect them to join the more than 340 individuals who have spoken with the Select Committee as we push ahead to investigate this attack on our democracy and ensure nothing like this ever happens again.”
Both Surabian and Schwartz, who have ties to Donald Trump Jr. and have been in the former president’s orbit since he first ran for president, communicated with organizers and speakers at the rally on the National Mall, the committee said, pointing to records obtained by the panel.
“While we plan on cooperating with the Committee within reason, we are bewildered as to why Mr. Surabian is being subpoenaed in the first place,” Surabian’s lawyer, Daniel Bean, told ABC News in a statement. “He had nothing at all to do with the events that took place at the Capital that day, zero involvement in organizing the rally that preceded it and was off the payroll of the Trump campaign as of November 15, 2020.”
Schwartz and Worthington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
According to the committee, Worthington helped draft Trump’s speech that day to supporters — many of whom later marched across the National Mall to the Capitol after he encouraged them to do so.
Trump’s speech and intentions were a focus of debate during Trump’s second impeachment trial, when House Democrats charged him with inciting the riot.
His lawyers argued before the Senate that the president did not call for violence against lawmakers or Capitol Police.
The committee has asked all three witnesses to turn over records by Jan. 24 and appear for interviews at the end of the month, or early February.
To date, the panel has publicly disclosed 53 subpoenas, and investigators have obtained tens of thousands of pages of records, including some from the Trump White House, and text messages and emails provided by Mark Meadows, who served as Trump’s last White House chief of staff.
The committee, which is prepared to hold public hearings in the coming weeks, has also sought to voluntarily question GOP lawmakers involved in efforts to challenge the election results.
Reps. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and Scott Perry, R-Pa., have refused to cooperate with the inquiry, and the panel has not ruled out trying to compel their testimony.
The committee is also engaging with aides and associates of former Vice President Mike Pence, who Trump and others tried to pressure to overturn the election results while he presided over the counting of the electoral votes on Jan. 6.
Longtime Pence aide Marc Short has been subpoenaed by the committee, and his attorney continues to engage with the panel regarding testimony and cooperation.
Thompson also suggested in a recent NPR interview that the committee could request to interview Pence in the coming weeks.
2 Chainz is the new NFL hype man as the road to Super Bowl 56 begins this weekend when the first round of NFL playoffs kicks off on Saturday.
The “No Lie” rapper is featured in the new promo campaign, “Whose back you got?”
“It’s playoffs time America and it all comes down to this,” 2 Chainz says in the video, flipping a football in a stadium. “So I got just one question. Whose back you got?”
PatrickMahomes of the Kansas City Chiefs, Tom Brady from the Super Bowl champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Green Bay Packer Aaron Rodgers, Kyler Murray from the Arizona Cardinals and Dallas Cowboy Dak Prescott are among the stars featured in the clip, along with numerous fans.
2 Chainz also dropped a new single last week, “Million Dollars Worth of Game” featuring 42 Dugg, from his upcoming seventh studio album, Drugs Don’t Sell Itself.
Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images — Karolina Wojtasik/HBO Max
Kaley Cuoco‘s Emmy-nominated series The Flight Attendant has added an Oscar nominee to its cast: Sharon Stone.
For the HBO Max show’s second season, Stone has been cast in a recurring role as Lisa Bowden, the estranged mom to Cuoco’s previously boozy title character, Cassie.
Season one started with Cassie waking up next to a dead man following a bender, and centered on her attempts to solve his murder and exonerate herself.
According to the streaming service, season two centers on Cassie “living her best sober life in Los Angeles while moonlighting as a CIA asset in her spare time. But when an overseas assignment leads her to inadvertently witness a murder, she becomes entangled in another international intrigue.”
The show’s cast also includes Zosia Mamet, Griffin Matthews, Deniz Akdeniz and Rosie Perez; recurring guest stars included T.R. Knight, Yasha Jackson and Audrey Grace Marshall, who will return.
Also joining Stone in season two will be new series regulars Mo McRae, Callie Hernandez and JJ Soria, while Alanna Ubach, Cheryl Hines, Jessie Ennis, Mae Martin, Margaret Cho, Santiago Cabrera and Shohreh Aghdashloo join the sophomore season as recurring characters.
Filming of the second season is underway in Los Angeles; Berlin, Germany; and Reykjavik, Iceland.
(NEW YORK) — Bank of America announced Tuesday that it will slash overdraft fees — the fines consumers pay when they make a purchase with their debit card but don’t have enough money in their account — from $35 to $10 starting this May.
The changes come in the wake of pressure from consumer advocacy groups that say these fees disproportionately impact vulnerable and low-income Americans.
A report released last month by the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau found that overdraft and non-sufficient funds fees remain lucrative for banks, reaching an estimated $15.5 billion in 2019. The CFPB also said fewer than 9% of consumer accounts pay 10 or more overdrafts per year, accounting for close to 80% of all overdraft revenue.
Moreover, despite a drop in fees collected, the CFPB said “many of the fee harvesting practices persisted during the COVID-19 pandemic.”
In addition to reducing overdraft fees, Bank of America also announced Tuesday that it was entirely eliminating “non-sufficient funds fees,” or the charges for a rejected transaction or bounced check.
The bank, which has 66 million consumer and small business clients, said it will have reduced overdraft fees by 97% from 2009 levels with these new changes.
Other major financial institutions including JP Morgan Chase and Capital One have cut or eliminated these fees that can seemingly catch customers by surprise at times, when something they think they are purchasing for only a few dollars can end up being closer to $40.
“Rather than competing on quality service and attractive interest rates, many banks have become hooked on overdraft fees to feed their profit model” CFPB Director Rohit Chopra said in a statement last month. “We will be taking action to restore meaningful competition to this market.”
Bank of America’s president of retail banking, Holly O’Neill, said the company has made significant changes to overdraft services over the last decade and now provides resources to help clients manage accounts.
“Throughout the process we have engaged our National Community Advisory Council (NCAC) for their guidance and feedback on our changes,” O’Neill said. “These latest steps will further support our clients and empower them to create long-term financial wellness.”
“We remain committed to taking actions that will further bring down overdraft fees in the future and continue to empower clients to drive positive changes to behavior pertaining to overdraft,” she added.
