INTERVIEWS
Beyond the Boys’ Club: Ann Wilson of Heart
Beyond the Boys’ Club is a monthly column from journalist and radio host Anne Erickson, focusing on women in the heavy music genres, as they offer their perspectives on the music industry and discuss their personal experiences. Erickson is also a music artist herself and has a new EP and single, “Last Love,” with Upon Wings. The latest edition of Beyond the Boys’ Club features an interview with the legendary Ann Wilson of Heart. As one of the founding members of female-led rock mainstays Heart, Ann Wilson knows just how difficult it was for women to break into rock music decades ago. She also knows what it takes to have staying power as a musical artist, as Wilson is still releasing imaginative new music and playing jam-packed shows. Wilson released her latest solo album, Fierce Bliss, ear...
Pixies’ Black Francis Talks New Album Doggerel, Why The Velvet Underground and Grateful Dead Are Similar, and Much More
Pixies are back with their eighth album, Doggerel, which finds the legendary alt-rock band exploring new sonic landscapes. With the album set for release on Friday (September 30th), Consequence caught up with frontman Black Francis to discuss the LP and more. Doggerel was recorded during the pandemic, with Francis having written 40 new songs heading into the sessions. The album also features the first writing credits from guitarist Joey Santiago, who co-penned the music for the single “Dregs of the Wine” as well as a few lyrics for the title track. With Doggerel, Pixies have now released as many albums (four) in their current era as they did in their initial run from the late ’80s to the early ’90s, during which they released four classic LPs in four years — including 1989’s Doolittle, whi...
Bryan Fuller on New Docuseries Queer for Fear and How Hannibal Is “Explicitly Queer”
In working on the new AMC documentary series Queer for Fear: The History of Queer Horror, director/executive producer Bryan Fuller (Hannibal) was excited to dig into all the facets of storytelling around this genre — including the way in which queer themes have been hidden within mainstream works for centuries. “As somebody who grew up used to the codes, and faced obstacles in my own career as a storyteller with queer representation, and having that eradicated or suppressed by studios or other creatives who just felt that the world wasn’t ready for queerness in that regard… I have a great affection for the codes of queerness, because there’s so much about being queer that is already coded,” he tells Consequence over Zoom. In fact, he says, that affection for codes ended up having a big inf...
L.S. Dunes Is the Post-Hardcore Anti-Supergroup Born Out of Memes and Friendship
L.S. Dunes don’t sound like a supergroup, and they certainly don’t want to be called a supergroup. But when they took to the Rise Stage early on a Friday afternoon to effectively kick off Riot Fest, one could be forgiven for mistaking them for that. While other stages saw audiences in the dozens under the midday Chicago sun, the debuting quintet amassed thousands of onlookers. As vocalist Anthony Green pointed out from the stage, it was a bigger crowd than just about any other band would have for their first show (including all of his so far), but that’s to be expected when the Circa Survive/Saosin/The Sound of Animals Fighting frontman joined forces with guitarists Frank Iero (My Chemical Romance) and Travis Stever (Coheed and Cambria) and the rhythm section from Thursday (drummer Tucker ...
Feid Is Making a Mark With Medellín-Made Reggaeton
With the breakthroughs of J Balvin, Maluma, and Karol G, Medellín, Colombia has become a hub for reggaeton music. Their frequent collaborator, Feid, has been keeping the world’s eyes on Medellín while putting his heartfelt touch on the genre that celebrates the city’s culture. After a year of performing around the world, Feid returned to his hometown earlier this month and made history as the first artist to sell out three consecutive concerts at the local arena, La Macarena. “The first concert I did was in La Macarena,” Feid tells SPIN from the terrace of his hotel overlooking Medellín. “J Balvin brought me out during his performance for his Energia concert [in 2016]. Now, we put everything into my shows. I just wanted to give them the best show. That’s my city. I had to put forth the bes...
Guy Pearce Saves All His Movie Scripts, and Other Insights Into His Process
Heads up for future film historians: Guy Pearce keeps the scripts for all his past projects on a shelf in his home, and they sound fascinating. “I end up sticking things all over the script, like a school project,” he tells Consequence via Zoom. “People laugh at me all the time about it, but I say to them, ‘Go into the art director’s room or go into the makeup trailer and look at all the pictures all around the walls of the world [we’re making].’ I need to create the world that we’re in on my script as well, like in the binder. Because it just keeps me in there. It’s great.” He explains his process like so: “I love visual stimulation. So if I can find images — if it’s a historical character then obviously there’s a lot of great historical stuff that I can plunk on the script as well. And t...
Lady Lamb Answers the Consequestionnaire: 15 Years of Staying True to Herself and Loving Sufjan Stevens
It’s Consequence’s 15th anniversary, and all month long we are featuring a series of retrospective features and essays encompassing our publication’s history — as well as the entertainment landscape at large. We’re also giving some of our past CoSigned artists a chance to look back at the last 15 years with our Consequestionnaire; today’s respondent is Lady Lamb. As a part of our Consequence: 15 Years of Sound celebration, we’ve made it a point to check in with stand-out artists that have received our endorsement from the last decade and a half. We sent out our Consequestionnaire to numerous Artists of the Month and CoSigns to get their perspectives on the past 15 years, as well as hear about how their career has changed over this time period. Today, we circle back with March 2011 CoS...
The Reclamation of Jessie Baylin
Jessie Baylin has been on the periphery of fame for more than half her life. At 19, she had the “it” factor as a singer-songwriter in L.A. A publishing deal with Sony, an audience with famous musicians like Justin Timberlake and John Mayer. At 22, she was engaged to a drummer, Nathan Followill, who she met at a music festival. At 25, they were married the same year his band, Kings of Leon, were conquering arenas around the world on the strength of hits like “Sex on Fire” and “Use Somebody.” In 2018, Baylin’s primary songwriting partner and producer Richard Swift died, which was a blow to the Nashville music community, as Swift was one of those peripatetic forces. He had ties to the Black Keys, the Arcs, the Shins, and more. But for Baylin, Swift was her musical lifeline, the person w...
Brett Morgen Knows That His David Bowie Doc, Moonage Daydream, Is a Great Drug Movie
Moonage Daydream, a cinematic trip into the psyche and legacy of the iconic David Bowie, has been out in theaters for a week now, and director Brett Morgen confirms that mind-altering substances are being enjoyed in those theaters. “It’s happening a lot,” he tells Consequence via Zoom, a few days after the unconventional documentary’s IMAX premiere. “I’m having people come up to me at the end of screenings lit and tripped out.” Officially authorized by the Bowie estate, Moonage Daydream uses decades of archival footage to craft a visually-driven look at Bowie as an artist, from the Ziggy Stardust days to the more grounded, yet still ethereal, man he eventually became. Given the beautiful visual soundscapes designed by Morgan, blending animation and music and color to capture the essence of...
Nikki Lane Softens Up… a Little
Nikki Lane isn’t making music right at this very moment, but, technically, she is working. It’s afternoon in downtown Nashville and Lane is at the Hotel Indigo, a location of the chain that is being converted into a much cooler, more curated version of itself called “The Countrypolitan,” with Lane tapped to oversee the lobby store and sundries. Lane has camped out here for the day, in a Wonder Woman-goes-twang onesie covered in white stars, rolling joints, and eating lobster rolls while she admires the layout of some vintage jackets and gets her bearings. It’s a lot to take on right before the launch of her fourth album, Denim and Diamonds, but Lane doesn’t exactly think small: She also just booked her release party in New York City to be on, of all places, a boat scooting around the Hudso...
Kelsea Ballerini’s Best Is Yet to Come
Seated in a sunny suite in downtown Nashville, Kelsea Ballerini starts the conversation like we’ve known each other for years and are meeting to catch up over lunch. “Where are your earrings from? Do you need a water? What part of town did you come in from?” Some of that energy is the Nashville way, and some of that is a window into Ballerini’s warm and incredibly open nature. The pop-country singer-songwriter — arguably the preeminent female artist in that space at the moment — is on the verge of releasing her fourth studio album, SUBJECT TO CHANGE, available Friday, September 23rd. She’s barefoot and wearing a bright blue dress that she explains is the same color palette as the album artwork. “Because I’m a crazy person,” she jokes. The album is a cyclical journey of fifteen tracks, all ...
Flatbush Zombies Answer the Consequestionnaire: 15 Years of Performing on Tables, Growth, and Singing Jason Mraz
It’s Consequence’s 15th anniversary, and all month long we are featuring a series of retrospective features and essays encompassing our publication’s history — as well as the entertainment landscape at large. We’re also giving some of our past CoSigned artists a chance to look back at the last 15 years with our Consequestionnaire; today’s respondents are Flatbush Zombies. One of the best parts of our Consequence: 15 Years of Sound celebration has been catching up with some of our favorite artists. We sent out our Consequestionnaire to a number of our former Artists of the Month and CoSigns to see what they had to say about the last decade and a half, and how their career has grown since we gave them our stamp of approval. Today, we reconnect with Flatbush Zombies, who we CoSigned way ...
