#i want to know which of the songs he wrote that other bands/artists did

[lock-my-feelings-in-a-jar]

can't wait to hear russ's new albums aaaaaaaa i want to know the track lists

[leeyanyanyaaan]

Kayn x Graffiti Artist!Reader

16 / 11 / 2023

hi hi~ welcome to the start of my heartsteel x headcanon series "creatively charmed"! sorry, i cant think of a better title atm LOL anyways, this is gonna be a series of the heartsteel band with a lover who's got a creative side to them XD that's all, hope you enjoy! next up will be sett ^-^

Started with another one of days where Kayn decided to go out and wreak havoc by vandalizing everything LOL

When he does he often comes across a lot of grafitti art, this one in particular has a certain style to it

He always lets out a little chuckle when he sees it.

Now, as a fellow artist himself, he is respectful enough to not ruin that person's art, but he does his own grafitti nearby. For him it always includes his HEARTSTEEL icon and if he's feeling good then some song lyrics or a joke

This time, it was shortly after HEARTSTEEL's debut MV released, so when he left to do his usual vandalizing, he wrote "two sides to a story but they never tell my side" with a bunch of doodles. He was particularly proud of this piece, so he was planning to continue working on it the next day

What he didn't expect, however, was for someone to continue the lyrics, with "never been the kinda guy to stay inside the guidelines" written underneath, as well as some art of Kayn's scenes and even a headshot drawing of him from their single's thumbnail

Kayn was surprised and amazed to see it, and broke out into an excited shit-eating grin once he saw the artist's signature that he saw in all their other pieces

"So, looks like I captured this person's heart too. Ever the popular star I am, no?"

And so, he continued the lyrics to his verse, secretly hoping this grafitti artist will continue it again.

Which they did, and gradually, that specific wall gradually filled up with PARANOIA's lyrics from their gradual exchange, even with additional doodles of the other members, Ernest and Rhaast, and some of the funny scenes of the MV

Even mini conversations started with side comments on each others drawings, for example:

"This dog -> true MVP of HEARTSTEEL"

"The dog in the MV? His name's Ernest. (But Kayn is the real MVP)"

"LOL u come up w that name? I can see it tho ngl"

Oh right, this person doesn't know this is THE Kayn Shieda they're talking to

Anyways, this exchange made Kayn excited to come back every time (even his bandmates questioned why he goes out every night looking all excited)

Same with Rhaast actually LOL, but Kayn doesn't let him because he knows how crazy he gets when it comes to vandalizing

"I WANT A TURNNN KAYNNN" "No! I don't need you drawing 100 dicks on the wall again!" "THAT'S HOW MUCH OF A DICKHEAD YOU AREE-"

But alas, all good things must come to an end, after... 2 months, I guess? They had finished writing all the lyrics of the song and the whole wall was full of just HEARTSTEEL PARANOIA. Okay, so that's the end of it then.

Until a paper plane hit the top of Kayn's head. Annoyed, Kayn immediately lifted his head up to the direction it was thrown, yapping angrily at whoever had the fucking audacity to do that

Just as he was about to crumple the plane, he noticed writing on one of its wings, "read me!" Raising a brow curiously, he opened up the paperplane, where it revealed a username with a discord logo drawn next to it, along with your artist signature :)

I love how writing for Kayn gives me the free reign to swear AHAHAHDJSN

[ranchthoughts]

thinking about Pat, Pran, and competition

Pat and Pran being competitive is a cornerstone of their relationship: they battle academically, they tease one another constantly, they fight physically, and they even officially get together through a bet. Pat and Pran have grown up with so much competition in their lives it makes sense that it would remain part of their dynamic, albeit with different contexts and meanings (i.e, as fun foreplay).

Pat and Pran were pitted against each other as kids, and then in university once again found themselves on opposite sides of a rivalry between their two faculties. However, the competition between the two of them has never involved feelings of genuine hatred. They maintained a fairly friendly relationship through childhood (they spoke to each other through tin cans, they were in a band and wrote a song together, etc.), and in university they pretty quickly started working together to keep their faculties peaceful and had limits on how far they'd go when fighting (Pat promised Pa he wouldn't physically hurt Pran). Pat says it himself in episode 6: despite being forced to compete against Pran every day of his life, he could never hate him. Competing was something they did - something they went through - together.

Competition is somewhat of a safe space for Pran and Pat - it is what they know, it is how they know to interact. Moreover, the first time they openly did not compete/worked together (writing and performing the song in high school), Pran was sent away. Pran says "When we are together [i.e., not competing], bad things happen." Competing is safer/more possible than not competing, because not competing is not sustainable with the families they have. This expresses itself in multiple ways: Pat and Pran pretending to fight at school, Pat and Pran not interacting at home, etc, but I wanted to highlight one particular aspect of their dynamic where this angle of competition is present:

Pran and Pat talk constantly about what they owe to each other. Pat owes Pran because he saved Pa all those years ago. When Pat tries to repay him, for example by offering to be the one who moves out, Pran refuses him. @dudeyuri wrote about this dynamic here: Pran uses competition and the excuse of "You Owe Me" to keep Pat in his life. He can't be Pat's friend because their families wouldn't allow that, and he definitely can't be his boyfriend, but Pran cares for Pat too much to lose him from his life completely. At the same time, Pran doesn't want to admit how desperately he wants Pat in his life (with Pran's feelings that would be too revealing), so he uses this competitive concept of owing something, of not being repaid satisfactorily, to keep Pat in his life. We talk about people inventing "intricate rituals" which give plausible deniability for things they ordinarily could not do or should not want in society (see this piece by artist Barbara Kruger) - Pat and Pran construct intricate rituals of debt to keep one another in their lives and intricate rituals of competition to allow themselves to pursue things they ordinarily would not dare to (e.g., using the Bet to flirt with each other). Speaking of the Bet, @telomeke-bbs (x) and @inventedfangirling (x, x) have has already written about how Pat utilized the competition of the Bet to get Pran comfortable with expressing his feelings and courting/being courted, and how he probably got the idea from Pran himself. Once again, competition is a safe space, a familiar space, for Pran and Pat.

This connects to another idea I've been tossing around: Pat and Pran are fluent in each other. They know each other very well and they rarely have to verbalize things explicitly to be understood (I talked about that with regards to the ep. 5 rooftop scene here). Pran and Pat's competitiveness is another example of this; to another couple, constant competition would take its toll (we see this a bit with Phupha and Tian in the Our Skyy 2 crossover episodes, for example), but to Pat and Pran, it's an important part of their puzzle. They've been living in this competitive dynamic since they were young, and they know each other's limits. For example, when Pran overhears Ming's comments and Pat is immediately concerned for him (see here), or how Pat and Pran keep their flirting with others (Ink and Wau) lighthearted despite trying to invoke jealousy in the other, and when it is too much, like when Pat gets hurt that Pran gave Wai his guitar to look after, the other realizes and reaches out to make amends. @thegayneurodivergentagenda points out a further example - despite competing and teasing Pran all the time, Pat always celebrates Pran's wins. The Bet, and how it utilizes competition, is another example of how well Pat and Pran know each other. Pat knows something competitive like that is the best way to get Pran engaged and feeling at ease.

Despite these shared experiences of competition, Pat and Pran have different relationships to competition. Both of them were pushed to be the best by their parents, but the differences in their parents and their personalities means they reacted to this upbringing and internalized it differently. Pran's parents wanted him to succeed (and to beat Pat), but in many ways this jived with his perfectionist, detail-oriented personality. Pat, on the other hand, was pushed to succeed by a father who had specific ideas of what success [and masculinity] looked like (fierce, excelling in contact sports and academic, a leader, etc.) which didn't necessarily suit Pat's personality (he is soft, clingy, loves to be cared for and to care for others, etc. - see @kattahj's thoughts here). We see how much easier it is, comparatively, for Pat to break free of his father's expectations and control: in the Our Skyy 2 episodes we learn that Ming is not very involved in Pat's life and Pat doesn't care what he thinks, and in episode 12 we saw how distant and strained Pat's relationship is with Ming (see @grapejuicegay's post on Pat and his father here, and @miscellar and others' here). Pran, meanwhile, stays closer to his mother and deeper under her influence for longer - in the Our Skyy 2 episodes he talks about how involved she is in his life (and there are a number of reasons for this, including his own personality, him being an only child, etc., as well as the similarities between his mother's dreams for him and his own).

For Pat, competing has never been something he was oriented towards naturally, so it is easier for him to remove the drive to win and the angst of competition to just enjoy the fun and sexiness of it all. Pat tells us he always lets his lover win - competing is, to him, a chance to demonstrate love. And how fitting for Pat that the clearest way he knows to show his love is to acquiesce - he's had the need to win hammered into his head from childhood, so of course to him the greatest thing you can do for someone you love is to give up the win. And of course that's how he interacts with people he loves, when the person he's loved since childhood (unknowingly or not) has been that person he was supposed to beat (see @transpat's beautiful post about Pat, Pran, and haq here).

For Pran, competition is encoded a bit deeper into his personality, so it retains a bit of an edge. And once again, that makes sense. Pran's personality is more suited to perfectionism and the drive to succeed, and Pran's been relying on competition as a way and a reason to keep his feelings for Pat at bay. Pat is delighted to be able to cede, while Pran is not at that point yet: he still has a desire to win, to prove himself as competent, which provides friction and hesitation in his relationship with Pat (we see him wrestling with this over the course of the Our Skyy 2 episodes). Despite this, competition remains something Pat and Pran do together, and Pran is slowly learning to let himself relax into it, to show vulnerability, especially as they begin to build themselves a life where competition is on their own terms.

Competition for Pat and Pran becomes a way to resolve or work through tensions (see Pat and Pran competing to see who can get Phupha's signature of approval on the architecture play first, which quickly becomes a cooperative effort - @miscellar details that here), or a way to demonstrate love and understanding of the other (see Pran challenging Pat to prove his love by publicly claiming him, something Pat has been longing to do - @dudeyuri details that here).

In @miscellar's post on episode 12, they defined Pat and Pran's ethos as "they don’t win or lose when they compete. they compete because they love each other and the result doesn’t matter," and in another post @miscellar says "competing is their love language and it’s how they kept each other in their lives, and in that sense competing is also a promise between them". For a long time, Pat and Pran had been competing but not really winning. While the competition forced by their parents did provide them with a powerful shared experience, it also kept them apart and unhappy. Pran and Pat kept up another competition of sorts, a You Owe Me type of relationship where they would never actually declare a winner or an end, because the point wasn't to settle a debt but rather to provide an excuse for staying in one another's lives. Then they started another competition, the Bet, one where they knew from the beginning there could be no winner because they had both already lost and the point was to provide a safe space to explore their budding relationship. Furthermore, all of these competitions required cooperation to keep up: Pat and Pran had to pretend to fight in front of friends and family, they had to pretend there are still unresolved debts, they had to pretend they didn't know that the Bet has been lost from the start. Competing means committing to the Bit, and committing to the Bit is something that brings Pat and Pran together. For Pran and Pat, competition has always been a means of connection.

[black-arcana]

HALESTORM And I PREVAIL Share Performance Video For Collaborative Song 'Can U See Me In The Dark?'

HALESTORM and I PREVAIL have released the official performance video for their collaborative track "Can U See Me In The Dark?" Check it out below.

"Can U See Me In The Dark?" was released in June, prior to the launch of HALESTORM and I PREVAIL's summer 2024 co-headlining tour. Produced by Live Nation, the trek kicked off on July 9 in Raleigh and ran through August 17 in Las Vegas. HOLLYWOOD UNDEAD and FIT FOR A KING served as support.

"Can U See Me In The Dark?" is an epic and explosive pairing, just like the tour itself, thanks to the vocal chemistry between I PREVAIL's Eric Vanlerberghe and HALESTORM's Lzzy Hale, stormy riffs, and unforgettable chorus.

When "Can U See Me In The Dark?" was first made available, Vanlerberghe said in a statement: "We're excited to finally have a song come out. It was a fun challenge to blend the HALESTORM and I PREVAIL sounds together. We really focused on creating a music bed that felt very much I PREVAIL and letting Lzzy just shine and do what she does best. I feel we found a very sick way to blend the two identities of our bands into one massive song."

Hale added: "In celebration of our upcoming tour together, we joined forces with the boys of I PREVAIL and wrote an original song together. 'Can U See Me In The Dark?' is written for our collective fan bases, our community, our family. We want you to know that you are seen and you are not alone shining through life's myriad of joy and pain."

Regarding the inspiration for "Can U See Me In The Dark?", Lzzy told "The Mistress Carrie Podcast": "We were talking a lot about the analogy of we're all in the same circus together, as in this is all of our shows. It's not just we're saddling up our wagon against a band, 'We're playing. Here's your set. Here's my set.' We really wanted to create this this haven, this sanctuary for our collective fan base, be, like, 'Hey, he's my buddy too. We come from different walks of life, but here's how we come together,' [and] really showcase that togetherness, especially considering, we all have this different flavor and these different influences. And so it's a really beautiful, powerful song that we're gonna be able to just kind of, like, 'Hey, here's something special for the tour.' So we're very much looking forward to being out with each other. And those guys inspire me to no end. Every time I hear their songs the radio, I'm, like, 'How did they do that?' I want a drop like that' — you know, that kind of stuff. So I'm looking forward to being inspired every night and hanging out with all those boys."

Having amassed over 2.5 billion streams globally, the Grammy Award-winning band HALESTORM has grown from a childhood dream of siblings Lzzy and Arejay Hale into one of the most celebrated rock bands of the last two decades. Most recently, the band released "Back From The Dead", their fifth full-length studio album which has tallied over 100 million streams worldwide. Rolling Stone called the title track "a biting but cathartic howler about overcoming all obstacles," and that song as well as "The Steeple" marked their fifth and sixth number ones at rock radio, respectively. Associated Press said the album "will definitely be in the running for best hard rock/metal album of the year." Their previous album, "Vicious", earned the band their second Grammy nomination, for "Best Hard Rock Performance" for the song "Uncomfortable", the band's fourth #1 at rock radio, and led Loudwire to name HALESTORM "Rock Artist Of The Decade" in 2019. Fronted by the incomparable Lzzy Hale with drummer Arejay Hale, guitarist Joe Hottinger and bass player Josh Smith, HALESTORM's music has earned multiple platinum and gold certifications from the RIAA, and the band has earned a reputation as a powerful live music force, headlining sold-out shows and topping festival bills around the world, and sharing the stage with icons including HEAVEN & HELL, Alice Cooper, Joan Jett and JUDAS PRIEST. Additionally, Lzzy was named the first female brand ambassador for Gibson and served as host of AXS TV's "A Year In Music".

I PREVAIL have established themselves as the forerunners of the genre in the 21st century. Their latest release, "True Power", once again produced by Tyler Smyth, features the sort of stadium-sized riffs that will rattle your teeth loose from your gums and unforgettable, supremely catchy melodies that will camp out in your brain for weeks at a time. The band also alternately mixes screamed vocals that sound as though they crawled from the depths of hell with soaring, emotional vocals and heartfelt, intimate lyrics that go so deep, they hit marrow. The end result is an album that resonates with the listener in the most personal way. Rising to an arena level and receiving two Grammy nominations — "Best Rock Album" for "Trauma" and "Best Metal Performance" for crushing lead single "Bow Down" — I PREVAIL proved that they were built to last. To date, they've racked up more than 4.1 billion global streams, are approaching 716 million YouTube views, and saw both "Hurricane" and "Bad Things" singles top Billboard's Mainstream Rock Airplay chart in 2020 and 2022, respectively. A number of their singles and album "Lifelines" have now been certified gold and platinum, and they have been praised by press far and wide, including Forbes, Billboard, Hollywood Reporter and NPR.

[reidscanehand]

you’re the northern star

Inspired by this song by Dom Fera Pairing: Rockstar!Remus Lupin x fem!Reader (Modern AU) Category: Hurt/Comfort/Fluff TW: implied alcohol/drug use (really just overdoing it on Remus’ part)

Well, this is different, innit? I was rewatching the Taylor Swift Miss Americana documentary and I got an idea about a rockstar not sure of what to do with himself. Also, this is a really fucking stunning song that I’ve loved and wanted to use for a while. The other lyrics Y/N sings are another Dom Fera song called “Midnights in October”. 

Three rum and cokes and a couple beers in Some lucky drunk stood up, heavy with where he’d been And he held onto someone, and he sung out compelled “You’re why I was right to trust myself”

~~~

Being a rockstar was everything Remus ever dreamed of. The Marauders had kicked off when the boys had all finished school together. Peter had quickly left before they really took off  - unsurprising, really, but no less saddening - quickly replaced, though, by Frank Longbottom, who was, in fact, a better player anyway. With Frank on keyboards, Remus on bass, James on drums, and Sirius on guitar and vocals, the band really began to gel for the first time. Remus and Sirius wrote all the music and lyrics - mostly Remus, really. He could play piano, guitar, and bass, making it easier for him to arrange everything, but Sirius did his fair share. The addition of Frank seemed to symbolize a new beginning for everything, really. 

That and James and Lily finally getting together. If James wasn’t so head over heels for the girl, Remus could’ve sworn he’d asked her out just for her connections. 

With Lily installed as their manager, The Marauders started to play bigger venues, their songs started getting more streams, and, suddenly, they were releasing EPs, then an album released to stunning reviews and an enthusiastic and ever growing fan base. They were invited on Graham Norton, then played a UK tour, then a US tour, performing on Jimmy Fallon, and Saturday Night Live. Then the Grammys came - Album of the Year, Record of the Year, Best New Artist, and Best Rock Album, all in one fell swoop. 

And Remus suddenly realized that that was all he’d ever wanted. All he’d ever wanted...and now that he had it, what was he to do? He didn’t really know. He suddenly felt embarrassed and uncomfortable. He couldn’t write, he couldn’t sleep, he couldn’t do much of anything. He played with the group, but even Sirius got on him for how bummed out he sounded while singing backing vocals. He didn’t feel like he could talk to his bandmates. He started drinking...aggressively, really. When he couldn’t sleep, he would drink to knock himself out, sometimes popping pills to help in the endeavor. Then he’d take pills to wake up, take pills to energize himself to do a show. He knew it was bad, but he felt just numb. 

It was an unspoken problem with his bandmates. They knew something was wrong, especially Sirius, who was so furious with him after their last writing session - a session to which Remus arrived late and hungover - that he didn’t speak to him for almost a week unless he absolutely had to. This last leg of the US tour couldn’t be over quick enough in Remus’ opinion. Tensions were high and maybe...maybe he just needed a break? He wasn’t sure. Their Reno, Nevada shows had been sold out and with the weekend over, they’d leave the next morning for Los Angeles. Dropping his stuff at the bus and then going to his hotel room to pick up his wallet, he left the hotel without telling anyone, doubting they’d miss him. James and Lily were...canoodling in their room, Frank was facetiming back home with his girlfriend, Alice, and Sirius was seducing whatever groupie he’d brought back that evening. Remus had tried the groupie route, hoping that feeling something would bring him back to earth, but it just made him feel even more numb, really. 

So, he took off. Their hotel was near enough to a bar that he walked over pretty quickly. It was some local place, he didn’t pay the name too much mind, settling at the bar and hoping no one recognized him. It was pretty dark, anyway. There was a little group playing popular music covers on a small stage in one corner, but it wasn’t too busy. Remus asked for a rum and coke, heavy on the rum. The bartender seemed to get the message and Remus quickly chugged back a couple of drinks, asking for a third when the band caught his attention.

“This is a less popular song,” a young woman says while pulling a stool up to the mic, “but it’s one of my favorites. I hope you like it.” The opening chords of the song caught his attention. He watched, transfixed, as the young woman began to sing.

“Oh, oh, oh, oh. There’s a story I tell, really just to myself. Like a prayer I sing to empty shores, so how’s it sound just like yours? How’s it sound just like yours?” she sang wistfully, her pretty voice lilting around the lyrics. 

Remus hoped he wasn’t drunkenly imagining things...because he’d written this song. It was one of the first songs released by The Marauders back before...before anything, really. Before they’d turned to rock, even. It was one of the songs he’d recorded with Sirius when it was just the two of them. He’d recorded all the parts in his closet at university, sitting cross-legged on the floor to fit in there with his various instruments, and mixing the parts on his computer instead of writing a paper for his intro to philosophy course. 

“There’s a spirit over midnights in October and it sings to you and only you. So, how did I hear it too? How did I hear it too?” She continues to play on ukelele as the rest of the band comes in on piano, bass, and drum, but Remus remains focused on the young woman. Her eyes are closed, but she’s smiling to herself as she sings. She looks so...peaceful. He can’t believe it’s his song that’s made her so...so happy, so wistful. The fans loved the music, sure, but Remus hadn’t seen someone love someting he’d created like this before. He sips his drink slowly, methodically. He doesn’t want to get drunk for the first time in ages. He wants to speak to this beautiful girl. He wants to tell her...he doesn’t know, but he needs to be more put together to talk to her. 

“And if we try to say what we need we could be okay. We clearly believe in believing, baby, we’ll try slow, we’ll try slow. There’s a spirit over midnights in October and it sings to you, only you and now I’m singing too. And now I’m singing too. And now I’m singing too.” She finishes the song and there’s a small round of applause, led mostly by Remus. The guitarist steps up to the mic and thanks everyone, announcing the end of the set for the band. The group gets offstage and Remus tries not to seem creepy as the young woman crosses to bar, leaning over it and ordering a Jameson on the rocks. 

“I’ll get it,” he hears himself say. She turns to see him and her eyes widen. 

“Oh my God, you’re...you’re Remus Lupin,” she almost whispers.

“Yeah,” he shrugs unsure of what to say. He’s still not used to the fans. Thankfully, she doesn’t seem the type to freak out. In fact she looks almost embarrassed.

“I promise I had no idea you were here,” she says quietly, “I would never have played that if I’d known-”

“I loved it,” he cuts her off. “You have a beautiful voice.”

“Um,” she looks surprised, “thank you. I really...um, I’m not really a singer or-”

“Could’ve fooled me,” he teases. The bartender hands her her drinks and she seems to remember where they are. 

“What’s your name?” he asks. 

“Y/N,” she answers shyly. She looks down at her drink and opens her mouth, quickly closing it again, unsure of what to say. Remus feels the most sober he’s felt in ages. There’s something about this girl that’s warming him. He can feel his heart beating and it’s the most he’s felt in ages. 

“Well, Y/N,” he smiles, scooting over and sitting next to her. “Tell me more about yourself.”

“I...what?” Y/N looks at him quizzically. “Don’t you have a show or...groupies to...or something?”

“I don’t have anything to do,” he teases, “except talk to the pretty lady that sang one of my oldest and most favorite songs in a random bar in Reno. So how’s about you tell me everything about yourself, hm?”

She looks at him, head tilting slightly, “Can I get you a drink?”

“A water,” he answers quietly. Her eyes glance for the briefest second at the three empty glasses next to him, but she doesn’t ask any questions. She orders him a water and scoots closer. 

“So, my name is Y/N Y/L/N.”

~~~

He said Keep me up, keep me out late Keep me close, I need your faith Keep right where you are ‘Cause I followed this far Like I’m sure that you’re the Northern Star I’m sure that you’re the Northern Star

~~~

“I need a ticket for tomorrow’s show, please,” Remus asks suddenly, not quite expecting the silence that follows. He looks up and sees everyone on the bus staring at him. “What?”

“For tomorrow?” Lily questions, clearly trying not to sound surprised.

“Yes, please,” Remus replies. 

“Who the hell do you know in LA?” Sirius asks far more aggressively than Lily.

“She’s not from LA,” Remus answers. “But she couldn’t get a ticket to the Reno shows, so I invited her to the LA one.”

“So there’s a she?” James teases, wiggling his eyebrows. Lily elbows him gently and then pulls her iPad over to her from the box it rests in on the bus. She opens it and clicks a few things. 

“VIP, I’d imagine?” she asks without looking at him.

“If you can, that’d be cool,” Remus tries to sound nonchalant. Lily nods and continues typing. 

“And what’s the name of this she?” Frank heckles, glancing at Sirius and James.

“None of your business,” Remus replies, trying to hide his smile.

“I will actually need her name,” Lily corrects.

“You can’t just put it under my name?” Remus almost whines.

“Not if you want her in the VIP area,” Lily looks at him mock accusingly. “And from the sounds of things, I assume you do.”

“Y/N,” he tells her, sighing exasperatedly. “Y/N Y/L/N.” He looks back down at his notebook, scrawling down a few ideas he’d had in his head since last night. He and Y/N had talked until the bar closed, then sat outside talking about everything and nothing until he’d had to leave for the bus. The couch shifts as Sirius plops down next to him.

“You writing?” he asks, trying to sound nonchalant.

“Maybe,” Remus shrugs, not looking at him. He can feel Sirius staring at him, but sees him nod out of the corner of his eye.

“You hungover?” Sirius asks quietly. 

“No,” Remus clears his throat, finally looking up at his friend. “I’m, um...thinking of taking a break from drinking for a bit, actually.”

“Cool,” Sirius nods, a small smile playing on his lips. “Pills, too?” Remus nods and Sirius practically beams, clapping him on the shoulder and nodding. He stands, heading back to his bunk before turning around, now facing everyone, a shit-eating grin on his face, “So, will you be dedicating every song to Y/N, or...”

Remus throws a pillow at him and pretends to be annoyed, but can’t ignore the genuine joy edging its way back into his numbed heart.

~~~

Three hours in to a three minute call Some gambler wondered if she’d just won it all And she laughed when he asked if his head seemed alright Singing, “I’ve seen the bright side my whole lovely life”

~~~

“How’s the writing going?” she asks, taking a sip of water from her Stanley cup that’s just off camera. Remus leans back against his headboard and groans in response. He’s thrilled when she giggles and he looks back at the screen to catch her smile. 

“It can’t be that bad,” Y/N teases.

“It’s not, actually,” Remus replies. “Album’s due to the label in about two months and we’ve finalized all but two songs in terms of lyrics. So that’s two left to record? Not too shabby since it took us so long to write the damn thing.”

“That’s amazing. More songs about...oh, what’s that new one I loved? Um...the one about Aperol?”

“’Spritz’ was more Sirius’ baby than mine, I’ll have you know,” Remus explains, “but I’ll tell him you like it, he’ll rub that in my face for ages.”

“Maybe he’ll hate me less for distracting his bassist,” she quips. 

“No one hates you, darling,” Remus assures her. “If anything they’re just happy I’m smiling again.” It’s getting dark outside his window and he leans over to turn his lamp on. 

“I’m sorry,” Y/N says suddenly. “I shouldn’t be keeping you up. I know the time difference is-”

“Hey, hey, hey,” he cuts her off, sitting up straighter, “I wouldn’t answer if I didn’t want to talk, love.”

“I know, but we were just going to say goodnight and then-”

“We both know,” he tilts his head teasingly, staring at her through the webcam, “that we weren’t going to just say goodnight.” 

Y/N rolls her eyes but smiles, “There are better ways of telling me I talk too much.”

“I’d love it if you could talk to me all day long,” Remus assures her. “And you know that.”

“I’d like that, too,” Y/N whispers, smiling gently at him through the webcam. 

“Really?” Remus asks, sitting up slightly. 

“Yeah, there’s all this stuff that I want to tell you throughout the day...and I’d text you, but then I feel dumb for texting you-”

“You can text me whenever, you know that,” he reminds her. She giggles and his heart soars. 

“I’ll keep that in mind when you finally get annoyed of me sending you pictures of my morning smoothies,” she teases. 

“Smoothie time? Babe, I’d be heartbroken if I missed it!” She laughs and he uses the warm feeling in his chest to talk about what he’s wanted to for a few weeks now. “But...but what if...what if you were able to talk to me all day?”

She freezes, eyes growing wide, “What do you mean?”

“I know that we...I know we haven’t been together all that long,” he begins. “But, I would...I’d really like it if you’d be my girlfriend. And I’d...I’d love it if you’d come here and just be with me. You can still pursue your music here...I know that you’re...”

“I’d do it,” Y/N replies quietly. 

Remus’ heart does that thing that it’s done since the moment he saw her. It feels like it’s expanding in his chest. 

“Really?” 

“How soon do you want me there, lover boy?”

~~~

Three weeks away from a year since the score And the reckless thieves reckoned they could get even more They ain’t casing out weddings, nah those are too big a sight They’re just looking at dresses and rings that she likes

~~~

It’s warm in the Ed Sullivan Theatre, but Stephen Colbert is easily the nicest host Remus has ever had the pleasure to meet. Despite the fact that he agreed to letting them present the new song instead of playing the lead single, Remus is still nervous. 

“Three more weeks, dude,” Sirius whispers to him. 

“Yeah, I know. How’s James holding up? Ready to get married?” Remus jokes, leaning back so James can hear him, whispering even though they’re on a commercial break. 

James isn’t annoyed, though, he grins hugely, “Never been more ready, boys.”

“No, not that, I mean, yeah, but, you and your girl,” Sirius corrects. “One year, right?”

Remus beams himself, “Yeah, just about three weeks. Our anniversary’s, like, two days after the wedding.”

“You, um...you thinking about it?” Sirius hedges, passing side glances with Frank and James. 

“About what?” Remus asks with faux innocence. 

“Come off it,” Frank groans, rolling his eyes. He and Alice got married during their last break, just before the release of this new album, timing it perfectly before the madness kicked back up again. 

“You guys gonna be copying everything from me and Lily’s wedding?” James teases. The boys laugh, but Remus just smiles. He glances around and spots you talking to Lily, probably going over your set list. You’ll be opening for The Marauders in most cities during this next tour. You’re a bit more indie pop than The Marauders, but the boys genuinely wouldn’t have it any other way. And the fans will likely love how you close with one of Sirius’ and Remus’ oldest songs, bringing the boys onstage with a tune of their own. 

Seeing that you’re distracted, he turns back to his band, his oldest friends and whispers conspiratorially, “No...no, but, um...I mean, I’ve had the ring for about six months now.” 

All three men turn and face him, eyes widening, jaws dropping.

“Dude-”

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN?”

“Six months?!?!?”

“Chill,” Remus whisper yells. “I’m gonna ask when we go to Paris after the tour’s over.” 

“That’s so romantic!” Frank whispers, turning away as a cameraman signals for them. James smiles and sends him a thumbs up.

Sirius stares at him for a moment longer and smiles. He mouthes, “Happy for you, dude” as Colbert introduces them.

“Back stateside for their new tour, the British rock band The Marauders is with us tonight. Originally they were going to perform the newest lead single from their new album, which Rolling Stone has called, ‘a near perfect sophomore album’, but their bassist, Mr. Remus Lupin, emailed about a week ago and asked if he could perform a bonus track. This is a bit different, isn’t it, Remus?”

Mr. Colbert looks to the band and a camera zeroes in on Remus, a kind PA holding a mic up to him. 

“Yeah, it’s not...not really a rock song, I guess,” he grins as the audience titters. 

“It’s called ‘Northern Star’,” Colbert says, smiling widely at him.

“Yeah, yeah,” Remus nods. 

“When we started writing, Sirius and I, we had a lot of songs that sounded like this. And it took someone very special,” Remus finds Y/N’s eyes and his smile deepens, “to remind me how wonderful it felt to write like this again.”

“Well, please take it away,” Colbert finishes. 

Remus nods and looks down at the piano, pulling the attached mic closer to his face as silence falls over the audience. He can feel Y/N staring at him, not expecting this at all. 

“Three rum and cokes and a couple beers in Some lucky drunk stood up, heavy with where he'd been And he held onto someone, and he sung out, compelled ‘You're why I was right to trust myself’

He said Keep me up, keep me out late Keep me close, I need your faith Keep right where you are Cause I followed this far Like I'm sure that you're the Northern Star I’m sure that you’re the Northern Star

Three hours into a three-minute call Some gambler wondered if she'd just won it all And she laughed when he asked if his head seemed alright Singing, "I've seen the bright sides my whole lovely life"

She said Talk me up and talk me down Talk too long, I'll stick around Talk me into following you somewhere far Like I'm sure you're the Northern Star I'm sure you're the Northern Star

La la la

Three weeks away from a year since the score And the reckless thieves reckoned they could get even more They ain't casing out weddings, nah those are too big a sight They're just looking at dresses and rings that she likes

They said Keep me up, keep me out late Keep me close, I need your faith Keep right where you are Cause I followed this far Like I'm sure that you're the Northern Star Oh, I'm sure you're the Northern Star I'm sure And I'm sure that you're the Northern Star.”

Remus hits the last chords staring at Y/N, hearing his friends playing his beautiful song all around him, and knowing that he’s happier than he ever thought he could be. Rockstar be damned, this is what he’d always wanted. 

~~~

A/N: This is different, but I hope you liked it! 

Didn’t include my taglist because it’s been so long, plus this is a different fandom! Love you all xx 

[jakeluppin]

Tagged by @renninflight thank you!! This took forever for me to finalize and post whoosps!

Rules: always post the rules. answer the questions the person who tagged you has written and write eleven new ones. tag 11 new people and link them to your post. let them know you’ve tagged them

Everything gonna be gonna the cut since this is longgg

What's your favorite band/musician? (And tell me why! And if you've seen them live!)

Favorite band is uhhh hard to answer. I think I'd say Hippo Campus but then that almost feels wrong to say? Mainly because I haven't liked them as long as I have liked other bands. So maybe them? But otherwise I gotta go with some combination of Something Corporate/Jack's Mannequin/Andrew in the Wilderness because it's too hard to pick a single Andrew McMahon band. I guess if I absolutely had to probably Jack's Mannequin? They just mean a whole lot me.

What's something you're proud of?

Pretty proud of the fact that somehow managed to get a master’s degree.

What's something you like about yourself?

Um, do my tattoos count? Otherwise I think I’m pretty funny.

What's something you would like to do, if money weren't an obstacle?

Get a PhD. I want to So Bad but money……

What's something you do when you're anxious or stressed to calm down and relax?

Normally just like watch a comfort TV show. Oh and pet the cat

Do you have a favorite author? (If so, who?)

Probably Kurt Vonnegut? But I don’t think I’d say that I have one

Do you have a favorite poet? (If so, who?)

Not really since I’m not super into poetry. Maybe Saul Williams, but I haven’t read any of his stuff in years but I definitely used to love it.

Do you have a favorite artist? (You can probably guess the rest of this question!)

Van Gogh. He just really is That Bitch to me

What's a movie or TV show that had a big impact on you? (Could be something you watched growing up, a movie you saw recently that made you emotional, something you've seen a lot, something you quote with friends and family, etc)

Shadowhunters. Partially the show, partially just being a part of the fandom. I wrote so many good fics, I made great friends. Both of which, along with the show itself, helped me realize I was trans. So yeah. Pretty big impact there.

What's something you wish you could forget? (Could be something personal, or it could just be a gross or weird fact)

Probably not what you were going for, but I wish I could forget Veronica Mars so that I could watch it again for the first time.

What's something you'd like to change about the world?

There are a lot of macro level answers (world peace, climate change) but I want to pick something on a more micro level. I would want all library budgets to increase 50 times what they are now. Actually sorry gotta change this. I want the polar bear dogs from The Legend of Korra to be real and that I could have one as a pet.

All right so my questions to ask:

What’s your favorite animated movie or TV show?

What’s your favorite instrumental song?

What’s a song you could listen to for hours on end?

Do you have any tattoos? If yes, what? If no, do you want any?

What’s the first fandom you really interacted with?

What’s the best way to enjoy chocolate?

What’s one skill you don’t currently posses that you wish you did?

If you could spend the day with any celebrity, who would it be?

What’s your favorite kind of sandwich?

If you had to change your name to something, what would it be?

What’s a show you first watched at least ten years ago that you still love today?

Okay so tagging @jakegyllinhaal @wisdomsdauqhter @joanthangroff @adraughtofamortentia @kattahj @thecolorofthegame @illegitimatetenenbaum @whitesunlars @ellcrain @cuppateadeer @puppystiles

[ms-moonlight-inn]

WEEKLY TAG WEDNESDAY

Thank you, my darlings @jrooc @mybrainismelted @energievie

—

Name: That Bitch

What is the most listened to artist in your music app of choice this month? The Rolling Stones? (how the fuck did that happen?)

What song do you know all the lyrics to? Any song? Or a Stones song? Any song, off the top of my head, The Cure's "10:15 Saturday Night" & "Doing the Unstuck." By the Stones, ugh, I don't think I know any of their songs all the way through. Eep! 😬

What song do you pretend to know all the lyrics to and sing along to even though you don’t? Oof, so many. One that comes to mind right now is "Echame La Culpa" by Luis Fonsi & Demi Lovato.

If you were to be crowned Queen/King/Royalty of listening to a band or artist, who would that be? Rancid.

What band/artist surprises you the most on your frequently listened to artists? I have no idea why the fuck Alanis Morissette continues to pop up on my random, also Maroon 5. At least I can say Taylor Swift pops up on my frequents 'cause I share my profile & people listen to her music. But the other two? 🤷🏻‍♀️ Why? 🤦🏻‍♀️

Favourite line from a song (or one you have been thinking about lately? One of my all time favorite songwriters is Jarvis Cocker. He has a way of turning a phrase that I find absolutely captivating.

In the song, "Seductive Barry," he wrote: "I will light your cigarette with a star that has fallen from the sky." Which is not a new phrase, but the way he uses it within the context of the song makes it ✨ special. ✨

Guilty pleasure band or song? Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam's "Can You Feel the Beat," & "We Don't Have to Take Our Clothes Off," by Jermaine Stewart.

Okay let’s talk fandom music:

Fave band or song you’ve discovered from a Fan Fic? I think the one that's stuck with my the most has been "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" the Daniel Duke version of the song originally done by The Proclaimers. It was used in AllThatMatters' fic The Ghost of You and Me.

Fave Fanfic Playlist? I like clicking on to playlist to see what's on them, but I can't think of any memorable ones right now. I think for me I have clearer memories of songs that are attached to a specific moment in a storyline or that are suggested as a play-along during a chapter.

Fave Gallavich song? "Pink+ White," by Frank Ocean.

Do you listen to music recommended by the writer or an included playlist? If there is a song that is recommended in the beginning notes, I will listen to it while I'm reading or before I am reading if I am using the screen reader while I'm driving. I don't always get a chance to listen to everything, but I do like to hear a song or two in order to get into the atmosphere the writer's trying to create.

What song do you think is Gallavich coded? Oof, so many. Gimme a sec...

Well, on the angst side, I've had Beck's "Lost Cause" stuck in my head.

What’s a bop you want to share with your mutuals today?

🎶🎶🎶

Tagging @ian-galagher @sleepyfacetoughguy @creepkinginc @iandarling @transmurderbug @deathclassic @jademickian @blue-disco-lights with no pressure to play. Also, if you haven't been tagged, feel free to join. 🤗

[alienelvisobsession]

The Freddie Mercury Connection

How unlikely that one of the most revered rockstars of all time was born in Zanzibar (an island off the eastern coast of Africa) to Indian immigrants, right? But, after all, how likely was it that Elvis Presley, with his smoldering looks, swiveling hips, and revolutionary musical talent, came out of a dirt-poor family of sharecroppers from Tupelo, Mississippi? I find the parallels between Elvis and Freddie Mercury fascinating, and there are many in my head. Ready Freddie?

Considered two of the best and most recognizable voices in popular music, Elvis and Freddie both had an incredible, almost unparalleled, stage presence, they came from an unlikely milieu unrelated to entertainment, and died in a heartbreaking way in their 40s. I find the way they are remembered and cherished very similar.

But let's start from the beginning! When he was at boarding school in Panchgani, near Bombay, in the late '50s, Freddie Mercury, then known as Farrokh Bulsara, formed his own band, with his schoolmates Bruce, Farang, Derrick, and Victory. They were called "The Hectics". Surprisingly, Freddie didn't sing, Bruce did. Freddie was too shy, so he played piano in the background. "We all wanted to be Elvis," Bruce remembers. The girls from another school screamed, "just like they'd heard girls the world over were beginning to do when faced with current idols". They played lots of Elvis, who was one of the rock 'n roll idols back then, but also Fats Domino and Little Richard, two of Freddie's favorite artists.

That shyness that relegated him to the background in school seems to have gone by the time we meet him again in England in the late '60s, singing with his blues band Ibex. He opened his shows with "Jailhouse Rock", a song he also performed with Queen many times. It allowed him to "indulge in gleeful histrionics, but for some time the rest of the group were unsure about Freddie's stage antics." How wrong they were! See for yourself in this live version from 1982.

In 1979, two years after Elvis' sudden death, Freddie wrote a tribute song to his idol, in the form of a rockabilly pastiche. It's one of Queen's most famous songs to this day: "Crazy Little Thing Called Love". He notoriously wrote it in 10 minutes while lounging in the bathroom. “I did that on the guitar, which I can't play for nuts," he said to Melody Maker, "and in one way it was quite a good thing because I was restricted, knowing only a few chords. It's a good discipline because I simply had to write within a small framework,” he continued. “I couldn't work through too many chords and because of that restriction I wrote a good song, I think.”

Everything, from the production to the lyrics is a call back to early rock 'n roll music. His voice on that track sounds so much like Elvis' that some people think it's an Elvis song. He said about it: “My voice does sound a bit like Elvis Presley’s on ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’. That wasn’t something I was trying to do, naturally, it was pure coincidence. It’s all sung rather low, so then you soon come close to Elvis, especially with such a 50s-type song". Freddie even kicks it up a notch in the video by wearing a black leather suit (albeit with kneepads!) and styling his hair like Elvis did.

Aptly for a song with a rockabilly feel, "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" was Queen's first number-one hit in the States. I don't know if it was because she had heard that song, but Lisa Marie Presley, then only a child, said in an interview that she loved Queen's theatrics and that the first concert she attended was Queen in LA in the late '70s. She gave one of her father's scarves to Freddie. Even though he never met Elvis, Freddie cherished the scarf for the rest of his (short) life.

You can find my other Elvis connection posts at this link. I've written about Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, and Quentin Tarantino, among others.

[dangopango00]

Difference (ANOTHER RANDOM SELF INDULGENT DANGER NOTES FIC)

Legato x gn!reader sillyfic

Context: College Band AU (ty ari); Ur his fave artist and he doesn’t even know it. Also prompt is “Difference”

A/N: i wrote this a long ass time ago but i wasnt go nna post it buttt legato needs more content so here i am. Ik dropping random au out of nowhere is wicked but sorry lol

They were different, no doubt about that. They could never be the same. The way they smiled and excitedly greeted him, the way they would pull their hair at the difficult work given to them, the way that they quickly drew their hand back after nearly ruffling his own hair—

“We could never be similar.”

This is what Legato thought whenever they sat across from him munching away at the cheese and crackers he received yet didn’t want. This is what he thought whenever they whined and complained about any minor inconvenience. This is what he thought…but. Even if they could never be the same was it really so wrong that he still wanted them around? Opposites attract after all. Was it really so wrong to be just a bit selfish with their time? He couldn’t care less either way— whether it was wrong or right. Though he still couldn’t rid himself of the annoying persistent thought.

“What are ya thinking about? You look so serious. Did you want some cheese and crackers after all?” They spoke peering over at him.

All he could do in response is scoff, “As if.”

They chuckled a bit at his hasty response and moved to be by his side, looking over his shoulder and just barely resisting the urge to lean on him as he sat on his bed, “What are u listening to?” They peered curiously at his phone which he was covering with his frame.

“You, unfortunately.” He said.

They only laughed at his rude response, “OK that was a little funny but forreal what are you listening to?”

He only moved his phone slightly to reveal the song currently playing at an evidently low volume through his headphones.

They grimaced at the mere sight of the art they clearly recognized, “LUV? No way I didn’t think you’d be the type to…” they trailed off.

Because of their reaction he got defensive, “The type to what?” He asked, already annoyed.

“Nothing nothingggg don’t worry about itttt. I just meant I didn’t think we’d have the same taste I love this artist they’re soooo good” They stroked their own ego.

He only huffed in response not really knowing if he should believe them or not. “Name a song.”

“What”

“Name a song from this artist”

They let out a cocky laugh. How dare he ask THEM to name one of THEIR own songs??? The AUDACITY. “Euphemistic. You name one now”

To their utter shock, he started to. Name off every song in their discography. They would be flattered if he wasn’t doing this to one up them????

Then he goes, “How many of those do you know?” THE SHEER FUCKING AUDACITY. Suddenly they didn’t want to lean on him any longer, “Im going to bed. Bye” they said as if they were going home but the two were roommates. They walked to the other side of the room and turned over in the small creaky bed to avoid having to look at the man a second longer. He smiled a bit. They really wouldn’t ever be the same.

SORRY IF THETES ANY LINGERING REMNANTS OF GENDER I LOOKED THROUGH IT TWICE OK

[artistsarehuman]

When parents (don’t) support their kids’ entertainment dreams

If you are a kid who wants to be in the entertainment industry and your parents or guardians don’t support your aspirations, you may either give up entirely or have to wait until you are an adult/independent before you can work on pursuing your goals.

While it is understandable that a parent might not want to put their child into the entertainment industry, refusing to support their creativity whatsoever can create frustration in the aspirant, and may contribute to psychological blocks that prevent them from pursuing their dreams when they are older.

Siblings Billie Eilish and FINNEAS were supported by their parents to be creative, being allowed to stay up late if they were creating, and with their mother teaching them songwriting. Ocean Eyes, which Billie sings and Finneas wrote and produced, was initially released when Finneas was 18 and Billie was 13. Billie is now 22, has over 100M monthly listeners on Spotify, her third studio album debuted at number 2 on the Billboard 200 chart and as well as topping the charts in over 20 countries. While many of Billie’s songs have dealt with themes of depression and self-loathing (e.g. idontwannabeyouanymore, lovely), there were also countless examples of braggadociousness (e.g. you should see me in a crown, COPYCAT, bad guy), and in my opinion, that self-belief or at least its projection, contributed to her success.

Dallon Weekes performs as I DONT KNOW HOW BUT THEY FOUND ME, and knew since the day he saw a guitar in a shop window at age 5 that he wanted to be a musician. His Mormon parents were not encouraging of his musical aspirations and so he did not own a guitar until he saved his own money and bought one at age 15, to his parents’ chagrin. While he wrote and performed for years before gaining much mainstream attention, and there were other reasons than lack of parental support for career delays, iDKHOW’s debut album was released when he was 39. Much of Dallon Weekes’ previous work was released with his band The Brobecks, and looking at the songs he wrote, there are often themes of self-doubt and anxiety (e.g. Better Than Me, I’d Be A Punk [If My Mom Would Let Me]). His work as iDKHOW tends to portray a much more confident persona, a devil-may-care attitude, perhaps best exemplified in debut single Choke, his biggest release to date, as well Absinthe, SPKOTHDVL and others. 

Besides the material delay in being able to pursue your creative aspirations, a lack of parental support can cause a belief that you don’t deserve to have the fulfilment of your desires, and that who you are as an artist and as a person is undeserving of free expression or the fruits of your labour (not to speculate on how the artists here mentioned personally felt in response to their parents’ support or lack thereof). 

[sweetdreamsjeff]

Jeff Buckley: The Lost Interview

In this previously unpublished conversation from 1994, captured just days before the release of ‘Grace,’ the mythic singer-songwriter pushes through self-doubt, professes his undying love for the Smiths and New York City, and interprets a dream wherein he critiqued a serial killer’s photography. 

July 21, 2022 by Tony Gervino

In August of 1994, I interviewed the singer-songwriter Jeff Buckley for over an hour at the New York offices of Columbia Records. Other than pulling a few quotes for a regional music newspaper profile I wrote at the time, this conversation went unused. I put the recording in a box in my closet, where it remained for a quarter-century.

I went back over the transcript a couple of years ago and realized that our conversation offered a rare snapshot of the most pivotal moment in Buckley’s too-brief career. He hadn’t yet sat for many interviews and was trying to figure out his own narrative, just before he was to leave on a national tour that would make such quiet, thoughtful introspection a luxury.

The son of folk visionary Tim Buckley, he had made his mark in New York City as a solo artist in 1993, performing a suite of original songs and genre-spanning covers with only his guitar and multi-octave vocal range. The buzz didn’t really build; it seemed as if one day no one in the city’s music scene knew who Jeff Buckley was, and the next, everyone knew. 

Prior to entering the studio to record his landmark debut album, Grace, which featured his most successful single, “Last Goodbye,” as well as his transcendent rendition of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” Buckley mothballed his troubadour set. To help bring dimension to the music swimming around in his head, he recruited the collaborative working band of guitarist Michael Tighe, bassist Mick Grondahl and drummer Matt Johnson. He wanted his solo album to sound big, ambitious and genre-slippery as he headed to Bearsville Studios in Woodstock, N.Y.

Even though our meeting was less than two weeks before the album release, Buckley was still tinkering with the mixes on Grace, tormenting producer Andy Wallace with sonic flourishes and rewritten bridges, and hoping to squeeze every bit of inspiration out of himself before the tape stopped rolling. In the pre-streaming world, this was an unheard-of high-wire act for a debut artist. But for a young musician who was signed to Columbia Records after a prolonged bidding war, it indicated a bit of acquiescence on the label’s part. From what they’d seen of him, Buckley was a can’t-miss artist. He just needed time, which, tragically, he was ultimately denied. Jeff Buckley drowned in Memphis in May of 1997, just 30 years old. 

I’ve edited this interview for length and clarity and removed some passages where I thought Buckley’s sarcasm could be misinterpreted, or where it spun off into tangents that ended with Buckley impersonating everyone from Paul McCartney to the French poet Baudelaire. He had the nervous energy of someone about to embark on a long journey, uncertain of its destination, and I wanted to ensure his answers would properly reflect not just his wit but his wisdom. ***** How does it feel to have to do interviews?

Well, at the outset I guess I figured why would anybody care? But I’m smart enough to know that people would want to talk about my music. I just didn’t think anyone would for a publication. But at this point the fatigue hasn’t set in, and no question is a stupid one. It’s still early.

[laughs] Mainly it’s helpful because I’m getting some ideas out about exactly what I think about some things. And the important thing in doing interviews is not to have any pat answers. That would make it unenjoyable for me. Like a … a murder suspect or something, in terms of having your story straight. Have you finished mixing the new album? No, I have one last day in the studio — one last gasp of creative breath before I have to go away. I’m totally pissed. Absolutely.

Did you write in the studio, or did you go in with the songs ready?

One of them was completely organized in the studio. But that was still prepared beforehand. A lot of stuff we’d done at the last minute because I was trying to get the right people to play with, and it took a while before I found them. 

But that was only three weeks before I’d gone up to Woodstock to record and we hadn’t known each other that long, and the band material hadn’t developed as much. Some things were completely crystallized, and some things needed care, and they got it. I’m still not satisfied.

Let’s see: I get to go into the studio on Wednesday, the day before I leave and the night after I perform at [defunct NYC club] Wetlands. So I have one, two, three, four, five precious days to [work on the music], along with all the other stuff I have to do. I have to shoot some pictures, possibly for the album cover. Then at night I’m free to get these ideas together, and I’ll still have one last shot on two songs in particular. The producer [Andy Wallace] doesn’t even know what I want to do to this one song. [laughs] He’ll be horrified.

Have you played it out?

Uh-huh. There are just things I want to crystallize about it.

Is figuring songs out onstage a conscious effort on your part to fly or fail?

Yeah, because I love flying so much. But, really, it’s still a kind of discipline. I guess it’s an engagement. It’s not like having “song 1 to song 6 and then a talk.” I don’t know anybody who really does that. I know a lot of performers talk about not being so structured. … Sometimes you can see bands that have a set of songs, and that shit is dead. That … shit … is … dead.

When I perform, I’m working off rhythms that are happening all over the place, real or imagined, and it’s interactive. It’s got a lot of detail to it, so I can’t afford to tie it up in a noose, and put it in a costume that doesn’t belong on me. So yeah, it’s free but it has its own logic, and sometimes it completely falls flat on its face. But it’s worth the fall, sometimes. Because that’s life.

To me it makes sense to do things in that manner, because that’s really just the way life is when you step out of it and see that, like, your car has a flat and somebody smashed in your windshield and then, shit, you’re walking home and all of a sudden you run into somebody that turns out to be your favorite person for the rest of your life. It’s always … unfolding. You just have to recognize it, I guess. And that’s my philosophy, that I haven’t really thought about until you asked me.

Have you been a solo performer out of desire or necessity?

Both. I did it to earn money to pay rent in the place I was staying, and bills, and my horrible CD habit, and failing miserably all the time, always playing for tips and always just getting by — by the skin of my teeth.

To get this sound in order, you can have a path laid out in front of you, but if you don’t have the vehicle to go down the road you’ll never get to where you want to go. So I guess I was building the parts piece by piece or going through different forms, reforming them and trying out different ideas and songs.

How long have you been building these parts?  

Some of them I wrote when I was 18 or 19, and some of them I wrote weeks ago, and some of them I’m still writing. [laughs] The rest of this album is kind of a purging, because the rest of the albums ain’t gonna happen like this. [points to chest] You’ll never see this person again.

Who and what are you going to become, Jeff? 

I don’t know, just something deeper. Nothing alien, just something deeper. I’m just not satisfied. I’m really, horribly unsatisfied. Cause I kind of got an idea of where I want this thing to go. It’s still gonna be songs. I think about deepening the work that I do, and other problems I try to solve, like, “If I go to see this band in a loft, or if I went to see this band in a theater, and I wanted to be very, very, very enchanted and very engaged and maybe even physically engaged to where I’m dancing or where I’m moshing, what would that sound like? If I wanted to be cradled like a baby or smashed around like a fucking Army sergeant, what would that sound like?” I daydream all the time about it. And that’s sort of what I work toward. It’s more of an intimate thing.

In America the rock band is not an intimate thing, but in America soul bands are very intimate and blues bands are very intimate, like way back in the day, when people who invented blues were doing it. It’s all very interdependent and it’s all very … people had to listen to make the music. And it comes around in a lot of different ways. Things I’m doing now are pretty old-fashioned: I’m going on tour to little places to play small cafés. [He lays his itinerary out in front of us.]

What do you expect the reaction to be? You play New York City and, by now, the people here know your deal, but there are some cities where they’re not going to know.

That’s OK.

Will you tailor your performance to different tour stops? Does it change the way you perform?

Every time I perform it’s different.  

How long have you been in New York City?

Three years. But I’ll always be here. I’ll always live here.

What is it about New York?

Everything. You know all the clichés: It’s the electricity, it’s the creativity, it’s the motion. It’s the availability of everything at any moment, which creates a complete, innate logic to the place. It’s like, there’s no reason why I shouldn’t have this now. There’s no reason I shouldn’t have the best library in the country, and there’s no reason why the finest Qawwali singer in all of Pakistan shouldn’t come to my neighborhood and I’ll go see him, and there’s no reason that Bob Dylan shouldn’t show up at the Supper Club. 

There’s no reason that I can’t do this fucking amazing shit. And if you have a certain amount of self-esteem, it’s the perfect place because there’s so much. It’s majestic and it’s the cesspool of America. And there’s amazing poetry in everything. There are amazing poets everywhere, and some real horrible mediocrity, and an equal amount of pageantry. There’s also a community of people that have been left with nothing but their ability to put on a show, no matter what it is — whether it’s a novel or a performance reading on Monday night at St. Mark’s Church for 20 minutes. Where do you do the bulk of your writing?

Everywhere. You know what? Mostly it’s in 24-hour diners, on too much coffee. That’s an old Los Angeles thing.

How much does the location affect the writing?

To me music is about time and place and the way that it affects you. There’s just something about it. There’s just some spirit that somebody conjures up and then it floats out at you and helps you or hinders you throughout your life. It’s either Handel’s Messiah or it’s “All Out of Love” by Air Supply.

Music is just fucking insane. It’s everything. Music is like this: It’s always seemed to me to be one of the direct descendants of the thing in the universe that’s making everything work. It’s like the direct child of … life, [of] what being “people” is all about. It’s incredibly human but it touches things that are around us anyway. [pauses, then quietly] It’s hard to explain.

Give it a shot.

It gets into your blood. It could be [the Ohio Express’] “Yummy Yummy Yummy” or whatever. It gets in. It’s not like paintings and it’s not like sculptures, although those are really amazing and powerful. But I identify with music most.

And is live music the next degree of intensity?  

Oh yeah, if they’re singing to me. You never hear it again, but you never forget it. I mean, you never forget it. It’s like the first time your mother cries in front of you. But I like making [music] and … I want the music to live live, even be written live, so it’s always forming, it’s ever unfolding. 

The king of improvisation is [the late Qawwali singer] Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan — the most I’ve ever been filled with any performer’s energy. I have over $500 of his stuff. And I never got to see Keith Jarrett, but there was a time when he was my big hero for the same reason. Big, huge improvisation. Improvisation is something that I identify with.

Which of your new songs is your favorite? Is there one that you can’t wait to get to in your live set?

Not yet. I give each song pretty much the same attention, and I have the same reservations and the same carefulness about making sure I bring out its best. No favorites.

What’s a song by another artist that you wish you’d written, that completely devastates you?  

Most of Nina Simone’s songs completely devastate me, although she didn’t write [most of] them. A lot of things that Dylan did are so impressionistic, even though his originals are supposed to be folky. Like “Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands”: If I was a woman and he sang that to me, I’d be like, “Whatever you want, Bob. You want casual sex whenever you want it and still be with your wife? I don’t care.”

I’d like to write something like “Moanin’ for My Baby” by Howlin’ Wolf, and I’d also like to write something like [Gerry and the Pacemakers’] “You’ll Never Walk Alone.” I have schoolgirl crushes on a lot of songs that never seem to go away. Lots of Cocteau Twins. That’s somebody I got to tell exactly what I thought of them.

Where were they playing?

In Los Angeles, a long time ago on the Heaven or Las Vegas tour. I’m immensely in love with their originality, their shyness. … But … um … the Smiths! [stands up abruptly, then sits back down] I wish I’d written half the fucking Smiths catalog. There are so many: “I Know It’s Over”; I wish I’d written “How Soon Is Now?” I wish I’d written “Holidays in the Sun” by the Sex Pistols. I could go on forever, and I know you don’t have forever.

Maybe sleep on it. I’m curious, do you sleep a lot? No, I don’t.

Is your mind constantly racing? Are you always just … fast forward?

Have you ever seen those film montages when a guy’s going crazy, and it just gets faster and faster and…

Yeah, sure, that’s exactly what I mean. It’s exactly like that. It’s like, I don’t want to miss a thing, and [I get the] feeling that I will miss something. But usually I’m wrong. [laughs] But when I do sleep, I sleep hard and have the best dreams.

Do you remember your dreams?

Sometimes, and they become the basis for a lot of my learning. That comes along with my development as a human being. Lately I’ve been having a lot of killer dreams — like a killer is coming after me or I have to confront a killer. And when a killer is coming after me, what am I going to have to do? To kill him.

Interesting. What do you think that means? That something in me is going to be murdered. That a psychic killer is coming. Actually, I met him. Sometimes I meet people inside of me that don’t like me; sometimes I meet people inside of me that want to make love with me more than anything; sometimes I meet the most bizarre animals and am in the most bizarre situations. 

One dream, I met a serial killer who lived out in a small town in, like, Virginia. A small suburban town, very nice, white picket fence. And he lived in the town in a church with the pews taken out. And he was an artist.

You remember this much detail? Just wait. He was a very short young man, probably about 28 years old with thinning black hair that I think he was ashamed of. He also had all of these photos of these people mangled beyond belief, carved up, dissected alive. They were still alive in these photos, and there was a wall of all of these seductively beautiful, textured, processed black-and-white photos. One man had been made into a basket. One man had been totally deboned but still kept alive, and his skin had been made into a basket upon which his head stood, looking straight into the camera. And right before he died, this snapshot was taken. And this is what this guy’s job was. And my task in the dream, I was the person that saw this amazing horror and this amazing pain. The photographs were screaming, and all of this madness, all of this waste at the hands of this person with a warped soul.

The irony of the dream was that his self-esteem was nothing, and he was saying, “This sucks. This is horrible. I don’t even want to show you.” I was so afraid of him and wanted to keep him in the same place long enough for the police to get him and take him away — while not being killed myself. Obviously. [laughs] So in order to be cool I had to ultimately be compassionate and point out the details in the picture where I felt there was brilliance and really good workmanship — all the while feeling that I would vomit any second, all the while so scared I thought I would cry. And that was the dream. 

Sometimes I have really rhapsodic dreams, and sometimes I have little bits of memory … but lately it’s been killer dreams, and the police almost don’t come in time, although they do come in time. And then I met a woman inside me that hates me. I met the girl, I met the person that doesn’t like me, and then I met this person who was so lascivious sexually that she masturbates publicly all of the time, like she’s fixing her hair. And she looks beautiful doing it and really great, but everyone’s around her and she’s practically naked. I’m pretty transfixed by [dreams]. I link them to the way I perform. I don’t see any separation, because when you sing there’s a psychic journey that happens. 

Do you write a lot of poetry?  

I garner my songs from my poetry. If anything looks like it’s vibrating, yeah. But it’s a raw thing. 

Was the Live at Sin-é EP, released in November of ’93, supposed to hold people over until the album comes out?

No, it served that purpose, but no, it’s just because I love that place.

How often have you played there?

I’ve played there a lot. I played there for over a year. At first I couldn’t get a slot. Shane [Doyle], the owner, had too many demos to listen to. I gave him a demo and a review, which is something I never ever, ever fucking do: pay credence to any one journalist’s opinion. But this was a good review. [laughs] Some positive, some negative. Mainly the negative stuff was my fault. So I thought that maybe I could get a gig at this little place because I wanted to play in little places to establish my sound and do the work and learn how to sing the way I wanted to sing. Because I didn’t have any teachers. There were teachers around Sin-é to teach what I needed to learn, but Shane couldn’t be bothered. 

Then somebody crapped out on a bunch of Monday nights and my friend Daniel Harnett got me in. He said, “I’m doing one, and so you can do one too.” I was like, “Wow, thank you.” As it turned out, that was it. Bang! I really worked my ass off to get that gig and get others and to make money. How did you hook up with Columbia Records? They came to me. I didn’t intend for them to. I was just making music. Were they the only label that came to you? Nope. I met Clive Davis. Shook his hand. I met Seymour Stein. Seymour’s at Sire; Clive is at Arista. A lot of people were interested. I met somebody from RCA. Peter Koepke at London. Were they in the audience at your shows? Then they’d come up to you afterward? Yeah, and I didn’t really like it. I didn’t like Clive showing up in a limousine on the Lower East Side, in a fine suit. Poor guy — it was so hot in that fucking room. This was Sin-é, right? Yep, you were there — like a fucking furnace. In the middle of the fucking summer. I had my shirt off; the guy’s still in his work clothes ’cause his life is fully air-conditioned.

Did you have any misgivings about signing? Of course I did. Being brought up around the music business in Los Angeles, you see the turnover of people being signed and dropped day after day after day, and it’s all written off as a tax loss. To the company, it’s no sweat off their nose. 

But here in New York it’s more about the work, and you don’t get anywhere without the work and that’s what I was doing. But I had misgivings about the size of the places. I had misgivings about my deservedness, about how good I was. I had misgivings about who they thought I was and what they thought I was. And how I wasn’t what they thought. At all.

Which is? Don’t record companies think that every male solo performer with a guitar is the New Dylan?

No, they thought I was the second coming of Tim Buckley. [quietly] That’s what I thought they thought.

Is that a recurring worry of yours?

It was that as a child. But now I’m totally immersed in what I do. If someone asks a question about it, I just tell them as much truth about things as I know. I had no misgivings once I saw my first and only liaison to Columbia Records, [former head of A&R] Steve Berkowitz. He was there from a pretty early stage, just listening. Which is what he does. Because he loves music. And he’s smart. And he’s smart enough to work this fucking gig at Columbia and to do a good job. The personnel here [at Columbia] are what really changed my worries, but I’m really worried up until, like, now. How would you describe your sound? I can’t explain it because I’m actually confused. It’s not really a tremendous literary feat to describe it. It’s just an amalgam of everything I’ve ever loved and everything that’s ever inspired me. I’m using that now. How do the Columbia folks describe you? They don’t know. At a recent convention I played in Boca Raton for A&R folks at like 11 in the morning, the guy that introduced me said, “We really don’t know what this is. We don’t know what kind of record he’s gonna make. We just know he has to make it.” … a.k.a. “Introducing the boy genius…” I’m not a boy genius. I’m neither one, actually. But I’m aware that these people have to move units. I’m aware that this company, by inertia alone, has an agenda. That it can function without me, and I can function without it. But there’s a certain thing that I can’t have without it, and that’s making little plastic discs and traveling the world and being a musician, and they seem to want me. A lot. And I feel that where I’m going is worthwhile, that maybe when I get there this all will have been … whatever crappy shit I’ve ever done will be redeemed. Do you think you’ll ever get there? Sure. Or you’ll find me swinging from somebody’s dressing room [laughs] with a big blue arm holding a Jam tape.  

[seasurfacefullofclouds1]

I wouldn't liken Louis to Normani or Perrie, though Normani was probably hobbled too. Both women come from successful bands but not iconic ones that lots of non-fans globally know. Liam and Noel Gallagher are still overshadowed by their old huge band, while producing successful music of their own, and they both play a fair number of Oasis songs at festivals. Ive never heard anyone complain about it or mocking them for it, and they both have vocal fans still hoping for a reunion. OTOs. But LG is able to play Knebworth as a very successful solo act (which is a massive venue to fill) and NG can pack them in too. Maybe the real issue is that we fear Louis is 'tainting' his new music and efforts to gain respect from the indie scene by association with a boy band, which is a shameful thing to a music snob. In other words it's what 1D was thats the issue, rather than that he's not pretending he sprung fully formed into his solo career without a band past. If he'd been in Oasis maybe we wouldn't be objecting to old songs.Maybe we should be honest about that. Louis has reworked each 1D track to fit his new sound though, so that may not be as much of a problem as we think for non aligned listeners who find they actually quite like the vaguely familiar but much better music they're hearing. The odd song from Walls, like maybe AY, could be accused to being rooted in boyband-pop as DMD or NC to a new listener but don't think any of us would have problems with him playing AY live again. WDBHG was always aiming at pop-rock. Louis sees how the audience reacts to each song too in ways we dont, and reviewers have commented that the 1D reworked songs get the biggest sing along moments. Nostalgia can be a powerful weapon to have in your armoury if you wield it cleverly, which I thought Louis was doing, until the PinkPop backlash.

I thought I read a snippet of a review that the biggest singalong / enthusiasm to Louis’ set was to the One Direction songs. Most of the TikToks and Instagrams posted from his Pinkpop set are of Night Changes or Where Do Broken Hearts Go. This is the case with the FITF concerts too— and when media like the tour management companies post videos, they also tend to post One Direction songs.

This is like Live Nation covering Noel or Liam’s big concerts but only posting videos of Wonderwall or Champagne Supernova, again and again. It’s fun. People love it. But they’re able to do that because they are superstars on their own. They put in their time as solo artists, put in the grind, wrote the albums and did the solo tours (which weren’t always Knebworth— time has passed and fans do become nostalgic). It’s true that the public is biased against Louis’ boyband past, and one can argue Louis is addressing that head-on with a reworking of the songs, to make them his own. It’s admirable, really, but the flip side of the argument is that he already has better indie songs of his own.

The main question is whether Louis would ever convert festival goers who are skeptical anyway, people who are bored at festivals and want to hear what “Louis from 1D” is capable of.

The frustration of Louis’ solo fans is that we know what he can do. We’ve heard Walls and Faith In The Future. We know how he’s worked on his craft over many years, and how his musical intelligence has grown, how his taste has expanded, how his courage to defy the odds has yielded a bold signature— and we feel that Louis has musically blossomed the farthest of all the 1D men. It feels like there’s an artificial constraint to hold this expression back. (And it isn’t mostly about a petty fandom feud or fans “wanting control” of Louis’ career. The disingenuous pettiness of these arguments drags solo fans down to the level of others who concentrate on “winning” the fandom war, as if solo fans have ever wanted anything but Louis’ music to succeed.)

The big question confronting the festival season isn’t whether Louis’ fans will like his set. I suspect fans will continue to disagree, but we’ll show up for him anyway, come hell or high water. Reviewers will keep commenting about the rabid fangirls at a 1D concert; they’ll never stop writing about that (which is fine. Charisma is infectious).

The gamble is whether Louis can show festival goers who he has become, whether that version is a true representation of himself, and whether the general public feels that’s good enough for a second life at music. Nothing Louis’ fans think really matters that much in this equation. I suspect Louis won’t let this discourse affect his choices much either; he usually hasn’t in the past. As for the audience feedback— that’s something only time will tell.

[should-know-better]

https://www.noisyroad.it/interviste/lincontro-con-baggio-e-i-progetti-con-calcutta-intervista-a-miles-kane_48589>

I Google translated this interview :

The meeting with Baggio and the projects with Calcutta: interview with Miles Kane

The news is one of those bombs, and it's Miles Kane himself who gave me the scoop during our interview in a Milanese hotel: he and Calcutta have already recorded a couple of songs together and a band formed by the two of them and Angelica is planned. In short, the dream of every Italian indie kid is about to come true. But the news doesn't end here, including updates on the status of the new long-awaited Last Shadow Puppets album and the story of his special day with Roberto Baggio (with a lot of shiny eyes as he talks about it). Miles is a river in flood, a One Man Band, to quote the title of his latest album, which marks a return to the origins for the English artist.

The last time I interviewed you was in the middle of the pandemic. You told me that the title of your previous album Change The Show came to your mind while you were watching TV and they were broadcasting a confrontation between Biden and Trump. The years go by, but it seems to me that it hasn't changed that much...

(Laughs, ed) Yes, you're absolutely right! We're on point!

Your last album, on the other hand, is a return to the origins: just you and your guitar, just like when you played in your bedroom as a kid. What made you look back?

I don't know, I suppose it's one of those spontaneous things that happen before you start making a new album. I wanted to go back to making heavier songs, and one day I wrote the song One Man Band and sent it to my cousin James (Skelly, frontman of Coral, ed), who then produced the entire album. We immediately realised that that piece had something special. That song had captured exactly the identity that the record would have, you know? And so once the first song was ready, the others cascaded. Every album I write is always very personal, but this one is even more so.

Often artists with a long career behind them when they want to make an album that sounds like their first fail, or in any case you feel that it is pale imitations, also because it is a difficult thing to do. In this case it is not so.

I like what you said: "it's hard to do". It's very true, especially after you've made some album it's hard to have the same kind of energy as the first album. But I think I succeeded with One Man Band, both in terms of energy and quality. I set the bar very high and now I intend to keep it there.

I was wondering: when you recorded the first auditions for the album, did you start playing the guitar of the songs you played when you started?

Yes, I started playing some old 60s pieces, beats, garage, surf guitar, guitars and vocals, with very personal lyrics, which have always been my highlight. I want to keep doing it and improve even more for the next album.

You have a special relationship with Italy: you have many friends here, as well as your biggest idol: Roberto Baggio. How was it to meet him in person?

It was the best day of my life! (His eyes light up, ed) He was fantastic, he welcomed me to his house with his wife and daughter, we sat down and drank wine together for a couple of hours. It was a really powerful meeting on a spiritual level, if you know what I mean. He was really nice to me and that afternoon he really did something to me: something like that will probably never happen to me again in my life and I feel very lucky and grateful for that. I remember very well when I was a 10-year-old boy and I was a big fan of his, then 20 years later you write a song about that and it happens that he listens to it and invites you to his house. It's an amazing story that includes my childhood, being a songwriter and meeting your hero. It's proof that if you really believe it, things come true in the end, even if it certainly doesn't happen often. It still leaves me speechless if I think about it.

Also because he is a very shy character, who has always lived away from the spotlight.

Exactly! And this makes what happened even more extraordinary. No one would have ever expected something like this to happen!

Next item on your to-do list: have Baggio see one of your shows.

Yes, absolutely, I would love to. I hope it really happens one day.

Moving on to English football, I know you're rooting for Liverpool now, but you used to cheer for Manchester United.

My uncle, peace to his soul, took me to watch the games and as a child I was crazy about Eric Cantona and all those players who had a style just like Cantona, Maradona, Baggio... There is something different in each of them compared to all the others, their style, their being totally out of the ordinary. I've always been attracted to characters of this type and I always gravitate to everything that is different from the norm, I don't know if I explain myself.

Are there still players like that today in your opinion?

I have to think about it... To be honest I'm a little out of football now (laughs, ed). Now I follow boxing a lot, that's my favourite sport. I still like soccer, but I'm not a diehard anymore.

The last time we talked, you told me that your dream in the drawer was to make a soundtrack for a movie. Where are we?

Well... it hasn't happened yet as you see (laughs, ed). Although in my side project Miles Kane And The Evils there are instrumental pieces to the Link Wray, Dick Dale, you know that kind of music to the Pulp Fiction soundtrack, surf music. That's a project I'll focus on very soon and it's very exciting.

In reviewing your latest album, our editor Enrico Baroni wrote that The Best is Yet To Come would be the perfect theme for the villain of a Guy Ritchie movie. Do you find yourself?

I like it! It would be a dream come true. I love Guy Ritchie! Have you seen his latest series on Netflix, The Gentlemen? She's gorgeous, as far as I'm concerned he can have all my songs he wants.

You also have many friends in Italy: last year you performed at Mi Ami with Angelica.

That's a great festival! I'd like to play there again next time, there was a really nice atmosphere, nice bands in the lineup.

On Instagram you don't hide your fixations for our country: you often share songs by Celentano, photos of your Bialetti mocha and so on.

(Laughs, ed) Yes! All real, all things that I like so much, I don't pretend!

I imagined! In fact, I think that many here are surprised that you have not yet decided to move to Italy.

(Laughs, ed) Right? I think that could seriously be the next phase of my life. Who knows, maybe the time has come for Miles to move to Milan!

You wouldn't be the first: your friend and colleague Nic Cester has been shuttleing between Milan and Melbourne for years now. By the way, where are you with the Jaded Hearts Club?

We've already written a couple of songs, but I'm sure we want to write more. For now it's all still quite in the air...

Speaking of things that are in the air, I have to ask you the question that everyone asks you.

Don't worry, shoot! Is it about The Last Shadow Puppets?

Bingo

Even there things are in the air! It's all inside the magic lamp, waiting for someone to rub it to let the genius out (laughs, ed).

So you won't be able to honour the 8-year interval for a new album.

It would have been nice to succeed and continue the tradition of 8 years, but unfortunately no, there is no material time.

But you already have ideas, have you talked about them?

You know me and Al (Alex Turner, ed) talk about it from time to time, remember what we did together and tell each other that we have to make a new album, but we have to start writing the songs first (laughs, ed).

There is no denying the impact that the Last Shadow Puppets have had on your respective careers. Influences that are also felt in your work or in the last 2 Arctic albums, for example.

You know it's probably something that's inside each of us and that's then reflected in the things we both do for our projects, whether it's the Arctic Monkeys for him or the solo career for me. There will always be that component, it's part of us. There will always be some Puppets influences in his discs, as there will be in mine, unless we start writing a dance or techno album. But the Puppets are what we really are. And I think it's a special thing.

A little while ago we mentioned Angelica. While I'm at it, I also wanted to ask about another Italian artist...

Calcutta! I love him.

When are you going to do something together?

We wrote a couple of songs together. And that's also another thing that's... there in the air (laughs, ed). There was the idea of making a small band with him, Angelica and me. We'll see.

You will sing in English and he in Italian?

We only did a couple of songs for the moment, and it was a bit one and a little the other: he sings in Italian and I in English, a sort of back and forth: it's an experiment but we both can't wait to finish it. We did demos here in Milan.

For this disc you wanted to remove all the strings and make it minimal and simple. In Heal I heard references to Michael Kiwanuka.

Oh wow, interesting!

Did you listen to it at that time?

Probably not specifically, but I'm a fan of his. I really liked his last album and so I take it as a compliment.

Historically there has always been a great connection between rock 'n' roll and fashion. You yourself have a close relationship with the fashion world and have been collaborating with Fred Perry for a long time. Are there other collaborations on the horizon?

Not at the moment, but there are always a couple of options. In the end I do everything by myself, I don't have a stylist, but I'm always open to things like that. The way I dress I want to always express my mood, whether it's with make-up or in a suit and tie or with a glittery glam jacket.

Last question: how do you see the new English scene? Is there really a lack of new working class daughter bands?

No, I think they're always out there. Of course, Brexit has made things more difficult, especially when it comes to tours in Europe. Now it's all much more expensive and therefore more complicated to play for emerging bands in places like France, Spain and Italy.

Do you have any names that you would like to recommend to our readers?

There are many... There's this guy I recorded with whom his name is Tom A. Smith, is a boy from the working class of Sunderland, and he is very good.

[greatsaladavenue]

Replies to anons

I’ve heard Imagine ofcourse but I do like more solo stuff post Beatles by Paul and John then by George. Sorry Mom.

 Been a Beatle fan longer than I haven’t, my Mother is the Beatle fan, her favorite has always been George, and really super-stans him.

 She has seen Paul in concert but I have never heard a Paul post- Beatle song before 2022! Or John – aside of Imagine and, Live and let die and them christmas songs.

 Solo: George-”All things must pass album + When we was fab, All those years ago , Got my mind set on you.

Paul – McCartney, Ram + Tug of war, This one, Little lamb Dragonfly, , However Absurd, No More lonely nights.  John –Plastic ono band + Dream9 ,Working class hero, I know, I know, Mind games, Beautiful boy.

  Ringo – Photograph, Back off boogaloo, Midnight Vienna.

 My favorite is John because even before I knew anything about the Beatles or who wrote or sang what I liked John led songs. I still do. Don’t think he’s better that the others. In my world they where better together and neither was really better than the sum. I know what he did, I know he is bad and all that. Guess what I don’t really care.

 I have a type in looks and john fit there. My Dad and brothers are the musicians in our family but Dad and is more a Elvis fan, (he + a brother died some many years ago but see it's Paul in me talking of them ) my brothers likes them too but they are more hard rock/metal fans. (in music I have the 70-80's metal genre ! the favourite band I Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin. GEORGE usually gets my vote post-Beatle look as favorite looking Beatle, old man is RINGO!

 I grew up in the late 80/90’s when rock music started to really to go down and rap took over. "Harry Potter" was huge, It was nice to be part of something like that but then Rowling happend... I even had a short boy band period. Eminem was the biggest artist on the planet. I like 80’s and 90’s rap too. I pretty much like older music and a big fan of 80’s pop music too, Prince, Michael Jackson. I really love music and not just the Beatles along with some other artists and bands has more song that I like or has grown on me with time. I guess it’s true that older music was better.

I sort of feel a bit lonely with my Beatles  nobody around me IRL cares or think they’re overrated. I can agree that sometimes the beatles fandom can be a bit too much with the ”The Beatles did eveything first” and hate other acts who also was very important for music. Ofcourse it matters that the Beatles was white, ”sic” as most of the fanbase.  I have so many favorites and I love that I do.

McLennon is what really got me into the fandom. I’m straight myself but I’d never like want to fuck a 80 + year old man but I would be a Beatle groupie back in the days and don’t care which one I would do all of them. However I don’t really care what and if something happend between them I just see what i see, I hear what I hear. J+P are not straight

 I’m a mclennon thruther they where in love with each other! They where gay for each other. I don’t push Mclennon on anybody but here on Tumblr I do. I don’t think I believe eveything I read here is true, I also think many trolling this fandom and some seem to make fun it and comes off as a bit offensive to them as IRL queers. I can understand why Paul’s not coming out. I wouldn’t either in this or as part of the older fandom.

However I’m all for RPF, Yaoi, Yuri and femme the hell out of them. They do have that humour. Also they did all of it themselves, Iol, meaning if they didn't act this way we wouldn't be here. And I don't mean it as famous people they get a queer card.

I’m happy to continue reading your fics and fortcoming posts here. I really am!  I’ll probably keep my existence here as a re-blogger  because Beatles fans aren’t always nice about "us nutcases here" ( but it's better here than on other forums) and too many trolls end up here on tumblr mclennon. all the Beatles have haters and super-stans. Both is just as bad in my opinion. I love them so much, all four of them so much I don’t really have a favorite in Beatles, JOHN still gets my vote I'm a John -girl but they are still so connected. I do like more John-Beatle-songs than by the others tho and was super gorgeous.  

McLennon is my secret sin. I can’t unsee it or explain in any other way. There's a hole missing in the Beatles history as much as in their lives (J+P but also George how he was "left out" tho Paul and him knew each other before. Wouldn't Paul be saying more insane stuff about him too?) things would fill the blanks with McLennon! How can people not see that is my biggest issue. But far too many still today would say like if you got kids, has a wife, has sex with girls, you can't be gay. Yes, they both married women. but Well.. It's mind-blowing. They were so into each other.

My favorites Beatle songs and solo also keep changing all the time:

But The Beatles: Albums: From With the Beatles. Rubber soul and the White album.

 A day in life is a masterpiece.

I also end up listing Happiness is a warm gun, Something, Here, there eveywhere, Across the universe, Help, I will, All my loving, And your bird can sing, Tomorrow never knows etc!

McLennon: Again!

I absolutly believe it was was real. They where in love. The end goodbye. Sex yes they had sex in many ways. But whatever, when how they did it or talked about it or kissed? I'm sure some of the answers is in fan fiction lol. Reality is worse than fiction. Lol. But sometimes  I don’t think they never thought it was a big deal, like it was part of a song to Paul or whatever, and John’s did something to do with glasses. Like that's not me, this is me look at me. No i don’t know but quite often I just think it’s exactly what they are saying and didn’t label it. Other times I think they knew perfectly well what they did and they made own words so only they would know. Now we have Paul's sane but !? version for 40 + years vs John's bat shit craze -like 6+ years. of course it gonna shape our version of them and what happend between them.

 I do think whatever happend in the end John left and walked out of it how, when, why again is another story. I honestly don’t think he ever was secure of anything in his life and Yoko didn't help. I can't or more like don't want to believe eveything that is written about her tho. But the way she looks at him in the beginning she did love him then and there. She has at least made good things too for the fandom, made hits herself, worked for peace and less guns etc.

Paul more like gave up. I don’t blame or think India caused it but it deffo did not help! But neither did think of themselves at least at that point that they would try to claim anyhing of course Paul wanted a family and John knew that. I don't really see how they could have "solved" in any other way. At that time.

I have more thoughts about it. Here's when my mind keep changing. Whos missed who the most? who's more depressed? Woah don't forget it also WAS and IS tough to leave friends and bandmates behind, please do include that. Not everthing is gay either! But I’m pretty sure more than we know knew about it or at least thought the same thing.

They where ALSO friends, brothers,close,bandmates and shared this magic connection with George and Ringo. Sometimes I believe they got jealous of each other’s closeness, especially post beatles and they did tried to re-create this with other people too and this is perhaps the most telling, besides quotes, interviews,pictures, videos and songs. Yeah many songs are about that and each other.

 I don’t push away the idea of other ships happening in the band or other male lovers but if it was only them, to either of them it may have add to some of the confusion. So I don’t hold that against it. Actually I don’t really care much about their lives or families outside of the Beatles. Lol. Neither of them.

My favorite Beatle girl is Cynthia. I just think she’s beautiful. And the only girl who didn’t marry a Beatle-Beatle. I don’t really think John would have stayed that long if he didn’t at some point love her. Or any of the other he "kept around but left behind".

[alarrytale]

It’s not unusual when an artist drinks alcohol on stage. Harry has done it and so has Niall, just to name 2 who used to be in the same band. Louis never finishes that alcohol that he has on stage with him either. The cup is always around 1/2 full when he walks off the stage and never gets another one throughout the performance. He also doesn’t act drunk. And with this tour he only did 2 shots with fans during a show. One at the end of the show in America versus the barricade and last night which was a sip, maybe. I highly doubt him forgetting lyrics is an alcohol thing for him, it’s more of him probably writing a 100 songs over his lifetime and having a bad memory. Should he know his lyrics, yes of course but again not uncommon for artists to forget words to songs. It’s interesting because just for a quick example here people always think it’s cute when Harry drinks but if Louis does, it means he has a problem. So to say you doubt he was sober during any of his 96 performances is a very big accusation and a stretch when he never gave an indication he had an issue in any of his shows. Louis had a good show last night, despite being ill. He interacted with the crowd way more than having a shot at the 2nd to last song of his very last tour date. Yes i do agree with you that I too wish he would give more personality on stage because he does have a natural presence but he just gets in his own head too much. With that being said though, I guarantee you no one left unhappy from that show last night.

Hi, anon!

Like i've said many times now, i think it's very hard to determine how much he actually drinks vs. how much he wants to show his fans that he drinks. Drinking and doing drugs is a part of his image and it's being pushed. I do think he has a culture of toxic masculinity backstage and his supporting bands have talked about how much Louis drinks. We get pics of him drinking and he's got that cup of alcohol tied to his hand before and after shows. He's talked about needing liquid courage and taking a shot as a pre-show ritual. That's his own words. It could be all talk to look cool or it could be actually happening. We don’t know. I doubt H or N need to take a shot before going on stage...

I don't think Louis is drunk or high while performing, but i don't think he's totally sober either. I don't know why Louis doesn’t know the lyrics to his own songs that he wrote and have sung on several tours and have sung up to 96 times these last few years. He's blamed it on stoner brain and last night on drinking. If he tells the truth then his drugs and alcohol use is affecting his performance. If it's not then there really is no excuse for not knowing your song lyrics.

I do think his fans are having a good time at his shows, but i do think his behaviour is stopping others from going to his shows and i do think a bunch of us who love him are getting concerned.

If he's still ill, why is he doing shots? He's got his own festival tomorrow he needs to be ready for...

[analogskullerosis]

Re: the music ask post -- 25 and 27!

25. A song from an artist no longer living.

"Star People" by George Michael

George Michael has always struck me as one of the few singers of his day who definitely wanted to make music and be successful doing it, but didn't want any of the fame that you become burdened with. Everything he did with Listen Without Prejudice, Vol. 1 (refusing to give interviews about it, refusing to tour in support of it, refusing to appear in any music videos for it) was done entirely as a response to the Faith album being way too successful and George having hang ups about that.

I think "Star People" from Older (which was six years after Prejudice) is fascinating because it finds George still wrestling with his disgust for fame (namely fame chasers and stars), but he also seems to recognize that he also kinda likes the attention to some degree, but really hopes he's not as bad as what he sees.

You can hear that in these lines: "I do not count myself among you / I may be living in a dream / It just seems there's so many of you / Can't help but hope / There's a difference between you and me." You can also find it here: "It's a dream / With a nightmare stuck in the middle / But where would you be / Without all of this attention / You'd die, I'd die, We'd die / wouldn't we?"

Fascinating guy. We lost him way too early.

27. A song that breaks your heart.

"Tea & Theatre" by The Who

The Who's story is full of tragedy, but they're a band that's survived in spite of it. Drummer Keith Moon lived the rock and roll life so hard he died early in 1978. Guitarist Pete Townshend started fighting against major hearing loss in the late eighties into the nineties, John Entwhistle kept boozing and hitting cocaine into the early 2000s and died of a heart attack while the band was on tour. I don't really think Roger Daltrey and Pete ever took time to stop and really process all that happened until this song happened in 2006. Pete Townshend has denied that he wrote this song about his deceased bandmates, but I've never bought that. I don't know how you look at lines like: "We made it work / But one of us failed / That makes it so sad / A great dream derailed" and "Before we walk from this stage / Two of us" without thinking of the band's history and realizing that came out.

Even without the context of The Who's story, it's still a heartbreaking song about two older musicians who are reflecting about their past glories in show business together. They're proud of how they've survived, but lamenting about who isn't there with them. I like the moments when you can hear Roger really start growling and crackling a bit. You can tell the words had an effect on him. Live renditions of the song just have Roger and Pete sing it with nothing else but an acoustic guitar. Roger always holds a cup of tea and I think that adds a lot to the sadness of it. Sometimes, when you reflect on loss, all you can really do is just sit with someone. No words are spoken, but you recognize that you and the other person are still together and can drink tea together, while others can't. It's beautiful.

Thanks for the ask! I hope you like these!

From this post. Please submit a number if you'd like to! :)