INTERVIEWS
NCT’s Ten Is Willing to Try It All
To understand why Ten of NCT, WayV, and SuperM is in such high demand, all you have to do is watch him in motion. Contemporary dance is at the heart of his first solo single, “Dream In a Dream,” which was released four years after he joined Seoul-based company SM Entertainment and one year after he debuted in the ever-shifting NCT U. Empty verses and sparse choruses, as well as a barren set, left room for Ten’s dancing to take center stage. The effect was breathtaking — in 2017, it whet the appetite of those getting their first taste of NCT’s then-novel concept — but more importantly, it showed what Ten brings to the table when twenty-plus members, and multiplying, are seated by his side. Since then, his work in NCT’s Chinese subgroup WayV and SM’s internationally-focused SuperM has peeled...
Animation Legend Henry Selick on What He’s Learned From The Nightmare Before Christmas to Wendell & Wild
Director Henry Selick clearly has a soft spot for the spookiest time of year, having brought The Nightmare Before Christmas, Coraline, and now the new Netflix animated adventure Wendell & Wild to the screen. But here’s his favorite part of Halloween these days: getting to see trick-or-treaters in familiar costumes while distributing candy at his home. “I was delighted when more and more kids start showing up as Nightmare Before Christmas characters and then some Coraline characters,” he tells Consequence. “That’s my favorite, is kids dressed up as characters from films that I’ve worked on.” The best part is that the kids don’t know whose house they’ve arrived at, and, says Selick, “I’ve got a lot of puppets and memorabilia from all the films. So if the kids are dressed up like Nightmar...
Robert Glasper on Bringing His Multi-Faceted Piano Music to Austin City Limits, New Song with Mac Miller: “He Was a Trailblazer”
Austin City Limits might not be the first place you think of when you want to hear jazz, but if anyone could bring the genre to the wide-spanning music festival, it’d be Robert Glasper. The four-time Grammy winner is a renowned pianist, record producer, and songwriter, whose collaborations span roots-rock mainstays like Brittany Howard to modern hip-hop legends like Kendrick Lamar and the late Mac Miller; to call Glasper just a jazz musician would be immensely reductive. When Consequence caught up with him backstage at Weekend 2 of ACL just ahead of his set at the Tito’s Vodka stage, Glasper seemed relaxed, yet excited to return to his home state for the fest’s second weekend. It’s a little surprising given the circumstances; he’d just arrived from his current home base New York City, wher...
Behind the Boards with John Congleton: Producer Talks St. Vincent, Angel Olsen, Tegan and Sara and More
Behind the Boards is a series where we spotlight some of the biggest producers in the industry and dig into some of their favorite projects. Here, we sit down with John Congleton to discuss his production work with St. Vincent, The Walkmen, Tegan and Sara, and more. When an indie band wants to level up, they work with John Congleton. The Texas-based songwriter and producer has been instrumental in helming records for some of the biggest indie artists of the last decade, from St. Vincent and Angel Olsen to The War on Drugs and David Byrne. He’s been particularly busy in 2022, with his hands on some significant releases: Tegan and Sara’s new album Crybaby, Death Cab for Cutie’s Asphalt Meadows, and Whitney’s Spark. But one thing that Congleton’s productions all have in common is his ability ...
Melissa Villaseñor on Why She Left Saturday Night Live: “I Had Little Panic Attacks”
When Saturday Night Live returned for Season 48 this fall, it was missing Melissa Villaseñor, who had been with the show since 2016 — her best bits showcasing her jaw-dropping impressions and sharp silly characters. For those missing her unique voice, though, there’s Whoops . . . I’m Awesome, her new book featuring stories about her life alongside her own original artwork and fun activities for adults (get your copy here). In the book, Villaseñor refers to her job as an SNL cast member in the present tense, because she finished writing the book this spring but made the decision to leave the show this summer. But, she says, “all these things were created during that time there. So I think it makes sense that it’s still present.” When it comes to the decision to leave the show, Villaseñor sa...
Behind the Boards with Ricky Reed: Producer and Songwriter Talks Lizzo, Camila Cabello and More
Behind the Boards is a series where we spotlight some of the biggest producers in the industry and dig into some of their favorite projects. Here, we sit down with Ricky Reed to discuss his songwriting and production work with Lizzo, Camila Cabello Leon Bridges, and more. It’s been a whirlwind of a decade for Ricky Reed. Since 2012, the California-based singer, songwriter, and producer has helmed dozens of hits, including Jason Derulo’s “Talk Dirty,” Meghan Trainor’s “Me Too,” and most recently, Lizzo’s triumphant Hot 100 No. 1 “About Damn Time.” But Reed’s versatility is what makes his career so special; he’s never just been the go-to pop producer or top line aficionado. He thrives in the sonic grey areas of pop, determined to make each song in his catalog a full experience, never half-as...
Tegan and Sara Quin, Cobie Smulders, Clea DuVall, and More on Why High School Had to Be a Period Piece
“I’m really excited that we get to see queer art from the ’90s,” executive producer Tegan Quin tells Consequence about High School. Based on the memoir written by Quin and sister/longtime collaborator Sara Quin, the new Freevee series takes a unique approach to adaptation, anchored by solid debut performances by Railey and Seazynn Gilliland as twins named Tegan and Sara, whose complicated relationship becomes stronger as they discover a mutual love for writing and performing music. Thanks to showrunners Clea DuVall (who also directs multiple episodes) and Laura Kittrell, the series serves as both an authentic portrait of Tegan and Sara’s experiences growing up in the 1990s as well as a relatable narrative capturing the essence of growing up and discovering your true potential. Below, the Q...
How Bebe Rexha and David Guetta’s Complex Bond Creates “Incredible Chemistry”
Siblings fight but—much more importantly—they love each other. That dynamic is at the core of what makes Bebe Rexha and David Guetta such a dominant duo. Rexha and Guetta have an intuitive bond as musicians, the sort of innate ebb and flow typically reserved for lifelong friends. That level of compatibility can cause friction, but the tension is eclipsed by cohesion. The pair have repeatedly churned out smash songs together: “Say My Name” (with J. Balvin), “Hey Mama” (with Nicki Minaj) and, most recently, “I’m Good (Blue).” The chemistry between Rexha and Guetta is world-class, but their journey has been rocky at times. Rexha’s name was originally left off the marquee for “Hey Mama,” a song that—unbeknownst to the general public—w...
20 Questions With Kerri Chandler: How An Obsession With the Club World’s Best Sound Systems Forged the Icon’s Latest Album
Kerri Chandler is an innovator. The legendary DJ and producer, who is looking at 30 years of house music in his rearview, is an out-of-the-box thinker who doesn’t see limitations, just new frontiers. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news Case in point, his latest album, the 24-song Spaces and Places — his first since 2008’s Computer Games. Space and Places was not created in Chandler’s elaborate home studio in New Jersey — which is on par with any commercial studio, and leaves quite a few of those marquee locations in its dust. Instead, over the course of two years, Chandler traveled around the globe, recording the songs for Space and Places at clubs in various cities. Printworks and Ministry of Sound in London, The Warehouse Project in Manch...
The ‘Rollercoaster Ride’ of Wild Pink’s ILYSM
We all walk around with the burden that, at some point, we could get cancer. After all, roughly 1.9 million Americans will receive that bad news in 2022 alone. But most people are too busy living their lives to expect it. When John Ross was diagnosed in June 2021, at age 34, he was in the middle of creating new material for Wild Pink, the heartland indie rock project he formed in 2015. He’d started working on these songs four months earlier, almost halfway through making a record, when the disease had spread to his lymph nodes. Although he’s since recovered, having undergone two surgeries last year, Ross is still processing what happened to him. He didn’t want to make an album exclusively about his cancer, especially because he’d already written some of the new material before his prognosi...
Nick Kroll Plans to Work Until He’s “Very Old, Out of Touch, and No Longer Funny at All”
Nick Kroll’s got a lot going on right now: The recent release of his new Netflix standup special Little Big Boy; his supporting role in one of the year’s most discussed films, Don’t Worry Darling; and the upcoming new season of Big Mouth, the animated coming-of-age comedy he co-created with Andrew Goldberg, Mark Levin, and Jennifer Flackett. Not to mention the many, many other projects he’s guest-starred in over the last few years, a list that includes What We Do In the Shadows, Our Flag Means Death, Bob’s Burgers, Dickinson, and Curb Your Enthusiasm. “I’ve been so lucky to be able to be on so many of the shows that I liked,” Kroll tells Consequence. “And it’s something that I’ve tried to work on, to tell those people that I like their show and that if they ever wanted to have me on i...
Avenue 5’s Lenora Crichlow and Zach Woods on Rage, Catharsis, and How COVID Affected the Vibe of Season 2
The HBO sci-fi comedy Avenue 5 has a premise that would also work quite well as a drama — though there are plenty of laughs on set, and stars Lenora Crichlow and Zach Woods confirm that co-star Josh Gad is a major source of them. This is to say, Gad breaks the most, and according to Crichlow, “he makes others break. He’s the breaker and the instigator.” Right now, of course, a few extra laughs sound good. The second season of Armando Iannucci’s follow-up to the Emmy-winning masterpiece Veep continues exploring what happens when a futuristic interstellar pleasure cruise goes horribly wrong, due to technical mishaps and a whole heap of human error. As the crew and passengers face the grim reality of dwindling resources as they remain stranded years away from Earth, there’s a lot of yelling a...
