Music Features

In early 2020, Journey frontman Arnel Pineda flew back to his native Manila after playing a corporate gig in Texas. He was gearing up for a big year in which Journey would cut their first new record since 2011’s Eclipse and play amphitheaters all over North America with the Pretenders. …

Rolling Stone interview series Unknown Legends features long-form conversations between senior writer Andy Greene and veteran musicians who have toured and recorded alongside icons for years, if not decades. All are renowned in the business, but some are less well known to the general public. Here, these artists tell their …

Near the end of September, Sam Levine, who manages the rising act Tom the Mail Man, noticed an unexpected bump in the singer-rapper’s streaming numbers. After some internet sleuthing, Levine traced the rise back to the source: a post by MostleyMusic, a TikTok account that functions like an early 2010’s …

When you ask Steve Albini, owner of the recording studio Electrical Audio and underground-rock iconoclast, how he’s doing these days, he sounds like he’s joking at first. “You knoweverything is awful, right?” he says sarcastically. But then he reveals the full scope of how the Covid-19 pandemic has upended his …

Five years ago, Barry Bowman’s daughter brought him a box of his belongings that his ex-wife thought he might want to keep. The retired DJ went fishing through it, shuffling through old airchecks on cassettes and reel-to-reel tapes. “I jokingly said, ‘I wonder if that old Joni Mitchell tape is …

Jeff Tweedy makes a point of working on music every single day, but lately he’s been a little distracted. “The election is making it harder than normal to focus,” he says over Zoom from Wilco’s Chicago recording space, the Loft. “It’s hard to play the guitar and check FiveThirtyEight at …

Portland punk trio the Wipers played their first hometown gig, opening for a couple of New Wave-y California groups, in 1978. Fifteen-year-old Jerry Lang, a recent Portland transplant, was in the audience, and when the Wipers took the stage, he wasn’t sure what to make of them. “They weren’t really …

Earlier this summer, Etta Friedman was visiting her family in Yerington, Nevada, when she crashed her cousin’s motorcycle and broke both wrists. “I let go of the clutch on the bike and popped a wheelie,” the 21-year-old musician says. “And then immediately went vroom! and went into the front of …

“I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this as the first option for both delivering a child and putting a record out,” a very pregnant Katy Perry says, laughing over Zoom for the latest installment of Rolling Stone Interview: Special Edition.Both her baby and fifth album Smile are due around the same time …

Not too long ago, Margo Price was offered the chance to collaborate with a more famous artist. Some people around her thought it was a good idea, but Price wasn’t sure. “I love collaborating with people, but I’m not going to do it just because somebody’s famous,” she says. “I …