Chris Willman-Senior: Last News

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Halsey and Capitol Records are going their separate ways, spokesperson for both the artist and the label confirmed to Variety Saturday. “After eight great years the decision to leave Capitol is bittersweet, but we are excited about exploring a new partnership and sharing new music with fans,” said Halsey’s managers, Anti-Pop’s Jason Aron and Anthony Li, in a statement. “Everyone at Capitol poured their hearts and souls into helping Halsey achieve their dreams and present their music to the world,” the record company said in its own statement. “We are incredibly proud of all we accomplished together, and wish Halsey the very best in all their future endeavors.”

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic When Variety asked the members of Boygenius in an interview earlier this month about the setlists for their upcoming shows, they made it clear — no solo material, just band stuff, because that’s sufficient to fill festival-length sets anyway. On top of that, perhaps unspoken is the idea that keeping to Boygenius selections helps keep everything democratic, which would become just a little tougher if suddenly “Kyoto” earned the supergroup’s loudest roar out on the road each night. But the trio is doing some headlining shows this spring and summer, outside of festival dates. Do they really have enough in their arsenal from 2018’s initial EP and the full album that just came out to make a full show feel like a full meal?

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic To say that Robbie Fulks has been one of the best singer-songwriters in American roots music over the last quarter-century would be correct, and maybe a little reductive, too; he’s one of the best writers in America, period. It might be tempting to append the word “unsung,” since Fulks’ regular touring since the late ’90s has usually found him playing sub-SoFi rooms — like Hotel Cafe, where he’ll be appearing May 20.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Country star Tim McGraw announced Thursday that he is entering into a partnership with Shareability, a social content studio that specializes in “viral moments,” to start Down Home, a new Nashville-based media, entertainment and marketing company. According to the announcement, Down Home will be “dedicated to connecting McGraw’s country music audience with Hollywood and brands by producing film, TV and digital media that focuses on relatable stories that capture the essence and spirit of everyday Americans.” No titles or specific projects were announced as part of the unveiling, but the new company is said to have two scripted series in development with Skydance Media, with the intention of following up with feature film and animation projects. In a statement, Joel Bergvall, Down Home’s head of film and television, said, “People want stories that move them, and that starts with characters they can relate to. We’re focused on underdogs, unlikely heroes, and people striving for their sense of family, community, and belonging.”

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic When Bob Dylan made a performance film, “Shadow Kingdom,” that streamed via the Veeps platform for one week in July 2021, Variety reviewed the special, writing that it had “new arrangements so good that pretty much everybody who was watching Sunday was clamoring for a soundtrack to the event, preferably on LP.” That wish is coming true, two years later. (But not just on vinyl.) The music from “Shadow Kingdom” will be released in album form in June. The album version shall be released June 6 on streaming platforms and as a CD and double-LP. The film itself, out of circulation since that initial one-week pay-per-view window, will become available for rental and download for the first time in June, as well.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Blink and you might miss it, at least if you were planning to take the weekend off from watching concerts. The first reunion gig by the classic lineup of Blink-182 will not be waiting till the officially set beginning of the band’s tour in May, as previously expected. Instead, the reconstituted group’s first gig together since 2014 will be happening this Friday at the Coachella Festival. The late-breaking development was revealed not with any great flourishes or hoopla, but with the group’s name simply showing up on the festival schedule when it was released late Wednesday night, tucked in modestly among set times for hundreds of long-since-announced artists.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Country star Brad Paisley visited Ukraine with a bipartisan delegation of centrist U.S. senators and sang in front of destroyed Russian military equipment in Kyiv’s Mikhailovsky Square, and on a nearby sidewalk. He performed solo acoustic versions of his own recent Ukraine-themed single “Same Here” as well as well as a Ukrainian-language folk song. Paisley was part of the trip undertaken by Democratic senator Mark Kelly of Arizona, Republican Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia, all of whom attended a news conference in the square. “I’ll bet you’ve never heard Brad Paisley sing in Ukrainian,” tweeted former presidential advisor Igor Novikov, posting video of the singer performing in the rain as reporters looked on.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic The National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress has issued its annual list of 25 recordings that will be added to the esteemed list, covering a range that runs a gamut from the very first time mariachi music was captured for posterity in the early 1900s to Daddy Yankee’s “Carolina” about a hundred years later. In-between are some curiosities and monster hits that the Library deems worthy of preservation for all time — although, in the case of Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” the prospect of it the recording falling into disrepair due to neglect will probably not be an issue any century soon. Among the enduring smashes from the second half of the 20th century that made the list: Madonna’s “Like a Virgin,” Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven,” John Lennon’s “Imagine,” Queen Latifah’s “All Hail the Queen,” Crosby Stills Nash & Young’s “Déjà Vu,” Jimmy Buffett’s “Margaritaville,” John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” Bobbie Gentry’s “Ode to Billie Joe,” Irene Cara’s “Flashdance… What a Feeling,” Eurythmics’ “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)” and the Police’s “Synchronicity.”

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Paul Simon has announced a new album, “Seven Psalms,” a suite-like conceptual album that he says is meant to be listened to as one 33-minute piece of work, containing seven distinct but interlinked songs, or “movements.” The May 19 release will mark the first all-new collection he’s put out since 2016’s “Stranger to Stranger” and the first studio album of any sort since “In the Blue Light” in 2018, an album of re-recordings of older songs. The release is also due to have a companion documentary, “In Restless Dreams,” directed by Alex Gibney, according to a title card at the end of a trailer Simon has released for the upcoming album. No official announcement of that film has yet been made.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic It may take a greater elixir than anything Dr. Feelgood has to offer to elicit positive vibes in the war of words — and writs — between Motley Crue guitarist Mick Mars and the other three members of the group. Following a headline-making lawsuit filed by Mars against the band last week, lawyers or managers for both sides have spoken with Variety at length about the positions they are doubling down on. If you had to sum it up in a hard-rock song, it might be: “Grievances Grievances Grievances.” Until now, the Crue camp had only issued brief statements and a frustrated tweet from Nikki Sixx. But the band’s manager of 29 years, Allen Kovac, was so angered by an interview Mars gave Variety after the suit was filed that he agreed to go on record addressing what he believes are the musician’s most scurrilous accusations — including whether or not the group’s performances are largely on tape. “I have a lot of regret that I’m having to do this,” the attorney says, pointing out that he talked Nikki Sixx, the group’s unofficial leader, out of talking to the press himself, wanting the bassist to keep “taking the high road.”

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic In a development that may land somewhere between Woodstock 1999 and “Staying Alive” on the list of all-time unnecessary sequels, Billy McFarland is promising that there will be a “Fyre Festival II,” even though there was never a Fyre Festival I. “Fyre Festival II is finally happening,” the promoter posted on Twitter alongside a flame emoji. “Tell me why you should be invited.” The immediate responses or quote-tweet comments includes such remarks as “Imagine having this level of audacity,” “I’ll just wait for the documentaries” and “Because I hate myself.” McFarland was released from prison in 2022 after doing four years of a six-year sentence as a result of pleading guilty to charges involving defrauding investors and scamming ticket buyers. He was fined $26 million, as well, and has vowed to find a way to pay the investors he owes.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Amazon has come on board this month’s Stagecoach Festival in California to provide a livestream of the country music gathering. Live action from the April 28-30 festival in Indio will be streamed on both Prime Video and Amazon Music’s Twitch channel. It marks the second year that the festival will be extensively streamed, albeit the first involving Amazon. In 2022, Stagecoach livestreamed most of the main attractions on its own YouTube channel. In some years prior to that, Yahoo had had exclusive rights to stream select artists’ sets. Coverage from the festival will begin at 3 p.m. each of the festival’s three days. Stagecoach and Amazon did not immediately reveal how many or which sets will be streamed from the festival; a press release promised that performances from the Mane Stage will be seen.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic The Eddie Vedder-founded Ohana Festival in southern California will again feature the Pearl Jam frontman as one of the top attractions in 2023, as is customary, along with a heavy-hitting selection of rock names in the top slots and an eclectic lineup for the undercard slots. The Killers and Foo Fighters join Vedder as the headliners for the three-day festival, taking place Sept. 29-Oct. 1 at Doheny State Beach in Doheny Point. Haim, the Chicks and the Pretenders are the second-billed acts across the three days. Other marquee attractions in the idyllic beachside setting will include Father John Misty, the War on Drugs, Japanese Breakfast, Goose and Rainbow Kitten Surprise.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Brandi Carlile has been added as a participant in the NAMM Show in Anaheim, Calif. Thursday, where she will be interviewed about the insights she has gleaned into record production over her career. The biggest annual conference for musicians is taking place at the Anaheim Convention Center Thursday through Saturday. Her session, “Brandi Carlile on Producing and Uncovering the Artist in the Studio,” will take place Thursday from 1-1:50 p.m. and will have the singer-songwriter-producer being interviewed by producer/engineer/mixer Dave Way, who has worked on Fiona Apple’s “Fetch the Bolt Cutters” and “Extraordinary Machine” as well as albums by Ringo Starr, Pink and others.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic God only knows it was a matter of time until the Recording Academy picked the Beach Boys as the recipient of one of its annual all-star tributes, and the group’s legacy isn’t done any shame with “A Grammy Salute to the Beach Boys,” airing Sunday night at 8 ET/PT on CBS (and for on-demand streaming on Paramount+). No wrong harmonies are struck, literally or figurative, in a two-hour show that starts out feeling a little bit by-the-numbers but eventually lands on a series of knockout covers fit for a Wilson. Are you surprised that Brandi Carlile would be the highlight of a tribute special? Then come out from under your rock and do stay up late enough to catch both of her performances on the show, since she is one of a handful of artists granted both solo and duet slots in the setlist. First in the running order, she has a version of “In Your Room” that can’t really be considered “solo,” since she’s joined by bandmates Phil and Tim Hanseroth for an arrangement that has their modern mastery of three-part harmony paying homage to the Boys’ sub-incarnation as a balladic vocal trio. You hope for something transformative in tribute performances like these, and you know you’re getting the moment Carlile lends her perfectly subtle vibrato to the “roo-oo-oom” and “a-frai-ai-aid” to some of the opening lines. She and the Hanseroths make the bridge feel you’re doing a gentle waltz while enveloping yourself in a self-assuring hug, before the falsetto ending spoils that warmth with a chill down your spine. Yeah, it’s that good.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Muse was making its eighth visit to downtown L.A.’s Crypto.com Arena, frontman Matt Bellamy reminded the audience, shortly into the trio’s return engagement Thursday night — except rather than call it by its current name, he said the venue would always be Staples Center to the band. He added a joking, mumbled reference to “weird fucking con artists,” presumably a reference to his lack of faith in the state of cryptocurrency. Digital assets are fleeting, but office supplies are forever, right? There is some kind of loose analog there — no pun intended — to the situation with Muse, which is forever using futuristic imagery in its shows but reigns as one of rock’s best bands by its rootedness in a slightly pre-digital past.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic A touring production of the stage version of “The Bodyguard” was brought to a halt and canceled in Manchester, England on Friday night after patrons would not stop singing along with the musical’s songs, leading to house lights coming up during the climactic number “I Will Always Love You.” Two women were forcibly pulled out of the theater by security, and several police cars arrived to oversee the evacuation of the theater after what patrons on social media described as “fights in the aisles” and even “a mini-riot.” According to news reports out of Manchester and tweets from those inside the Palace Theatre, the show — based on the hit 1992 film — had already been temporarily halted once during the first act because of the disruptive audience sing-alongs, but was resumed. Later, though, with only about 10 minutes to go before the end, it was put on pause again while its star, Pussycat Dolls member Melody Thornton, attempted to sing the climactic song made famous in the movie by Whitney Houston, “I Will Always Love You,” over the sound of semi-tuneless howling coming from audience members. Thornton’s mic was cut mid-song, the house lights came up and offenders were evicted — struggling against being pulled out by their shoulders, in video footage captured by attendees — and the show was officially called off.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic In 2002, director Sam Jones made what is widely considered a benchmark for 21st century music documentaries with “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart: A Film About Wilco,” a movie that lucked into just about all the subject matter that could make B-roll footage of the making of an album into A-list material. It had conflict within the band, between an auteur and another member of great talent; conflict with the soon-to-be-ex-record label, over the basically unwanted classic-to-be “Yankee Foxtrot Hotel”); and said auteur doing his own demon-wrestling, outside foils notwithstanding. Now, it’s easier to see that Jones’ good fortune in happening upon all that wasn’t all luck. More than 20 years later, Jones has come up with another gold-standard music doc, in the form of “Jason Isbell: Running With Our Eyes Closed,” newly streaming on HBO Max. This time, as the creation of another amazing record — Isbell’s “Reunions” (recorded in late 2019 and released a few months later) — is put under the filmic microscope, there are no record-company bookkeepers as unseen baddies in the backdrop to a making-of. Major labels and the conflicts that come with them are so 2002, right? But one common thread is intra-band tension… as it probably will be in most good rock docs now or 20 years from now. It gets more interesting than that, though. In this instance, the difficult vibes are between bandmates who double as a married couple — Isbell and his fiddler-spouse, Amanda Shires. Here, unlike the by-now iconic beefing between Jay Tweedy and Jay Bennett, we know no one’s ultimately going anywhere, right?

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic “I carried those bastards for years,” says Mick Mars, telling Variety how he thinks his 41-year history with Motley Crue should not end with him facing off with the other three members in the halls of justice. The veteran band, now down by one original member, has sued to force Mars into arbitration, looking to get a ruling that he is officially a member or shareholder, with any of the rights that confers. They contend that when he announced he was quitting touring, that amounted to a resignation. Mars, 71, counter-sued on Thursday morning, contending that he didn’t give up anything, at all, by announcing last fall that effects of his longstanding arthritic disease made him no longer fit for the road. His legal filing was full of provocative assertions about the others, and so was the response Thursday afternoon from Crue’s lawyers, who believe he gave up all rights by putting away his touring suitcases — and further, the Crue camp maintained, Mars had become an instrumentally erratic drag on the band.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Motley Crue has responded to Mick Mars’ lawsuit alleging that the band is trying to force him out after 41 years, with the group’s attorneys contending that Mars already is out — having resigned, effectively, in their view, when he announced he was halting touring for good. Motley Crue’s attorneys also provided Variety with signed declarations from seven members of the touring crew that was out with the band when they toured with Mars for the last time on 36 stadium dates in 2022, alleging that his performances at the shows were under par and created problems for the entire group. “After the last tour, Mick publicly resigned from Mötley Crüe,” said Sasha Frid, the band’s litigation attorney. “Despite the fact that the band did not owe Mick anything — and with Mick owing the band millions in advances that he did not pay back — the band offered Mick a generous compensation package to honor his career with the band.  Manipulated by his manager and lawyer, Mick refused and chose to file this ugly public lawsuit.”

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Mick Mars, Motley Crue’s guitarist of 41 years, has filed legal papers bringing deep and apparently hostile divisons between him and the other three members of the band out into the open. The suit only demands that the group hand over relevant documents about their businesses in advance of arbitration. But the wealth of details in Mars’ filing offers a provocative look at the tension between him and the others, in what he says has been a pattern of “gaslighting” in an attempt to kick him out of the group. The paperwork was filed in Los Angeles County’s Superior Court Thursday filed through Mars’ attorney, Edwin F. McPherson, and says the band has deliberately withheld information about the various Motley Crue businesses that he has a 25% ownership share in. Mars says the band has demanded he sign a severance agreement that would divest him of those and other future interests, in return for a 5% stake in the group’s 2023 tour, which is going on without him.