INTERVIEWS
Bridget Everett Is Trying Her Best
“We’re all doing the best we can,” says Bridget Everett. A mantra of many, especially throughout the past two years, but particularly relevant for the cabaret singer/comedian/actress’ HBO comedy Somebody Somewhere. The series follows Kansan Sam (Everett, who was born in Manhattan, Kansas), who returns to her hometown and struggles to fit in while grappling with loss and acceptance. She has a saving grace, though: Singing. By harnessing her passion — and meeting a like-minded group of outsiders —Sam embarks on a journey of self-discovery. Is she making all the right choices? No. But she’s trying — doing the best she can. Says Everett, “there’s going to be some hiccups along the way, for sure.” Everett, 49, a longtime New York City cabaret staple, has found herself in the mainstream spotligh...
How Vikings: Valhalla Showrunner Jeb Stuart Went From Writing Die Hard to the Middle Ages
Jeb Stuart’s career has taken some twists and turns over the years, as he first established a name for himself writing a little film called Die Hard, following that feat up by working on Another 48 Hrs. and The Fugitive. But after stepping away from the business for personal reasons, Stuart has returned to writing for the screen. His current project is spearheading the new Netflix series Vikings: Valhalla, which has been greenlit for a three-season run, the first season of which has just premiered on the streaming service. Vikings: Valhalla is a continuation of fan-favorite historical epic Vikings, but set in a different period of time for Viking society with a brand new cast of characters — meaning that newcomers don’t have to have seen the original History Channel series, while fans of t...
Space Force Director Ken Kwapis on Making Changes For Season 2
Over the course of several decades, director Ken Kwapis has established a career working in both film and television, with plenty of feature work including Follow That Bird and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, but also notably directing the pilots for two truly game-changing series: The Larry Sanders Show and the American adaptation of The Office. It was the latter assignment which led to his most recent project: the second season of Space Force, created by The Office‘s Greg Daniels and Steve Carell. While the first season had plenty of charms, including a truly stacked comedy ensemble including Carell, John Malkovich, Ben Schwartz, Diana Silvers, Tawny Newsome, Jimmy O. Yang, and Don Lake, those involved have been open about knowing that the second season could improve on the first....
On Blossoms’ New Album, Tom Ogden Needed to Lean into the Past to Move Forward
When Tom Ogden began writing what would become Blossoms‘ fourth studio album, he was communicating through a character — one he dubbed “the writer.” The lead singer and guitarist was driven by a narrative that wasn’t necessarily centered around him — or so he thought. But it wasn’t long until Ogden had a realization: the character — the one at the center of the narrative, was in fact himself. For the past nine years, Ogden had been wrapped up in the whirlwind of being a busy musician: the tours, the planning, two No. 1 albums in the UK with their self-titled debut and Foolish Loving Spaces. In developing the character of “the writer” he realized that he hadn’t had time to actually reflect on the effects of that constant grind. “I felt like I blinked and got where I was in my career and fel...
Avril Lavigne Is Back and Ready to Rock on Love Sux
Ever since she broke on to the scene nearly 20 years ago, life for Avril Lavigne has been, well, complicated. Lavigne went from teenage pop-punk sensation to bonafide pop star to shifting away from the bright lights of Hollywood to focus on herself. She appeared in movies, launched a clothing line, formed a charity and got sampled in a massive Rihanna song. She dated celebrities, married rock stars and divorced them just as quickly. Hell, she even dealt with ridiculous conspiracy theories that the real her was dead and she was a body double. But now more than ever, Lavigne’s “just ready to rock the fuck out” — and on Love Sux (out now on Elektra), she does exactly that. Lavigne’s seventh studio album features a who’s who of multiple decades of pop punkers. Helmed by the combo of Goldfinger...
Sndtrak’s Brash Sample Flips Have Earned Praise from Madlib, 9th Wonder, and Ski Beatz
The “triple lindy” is a physics-defying dive composed of multiple flips completed between several diving boards. Rodney Dangerfield, comically unfit and forever disrespected, “completes” it (with stunt-double assistance and cutaways) in the 1986 comedy Back to School. Unlike Dangerfield, Sndtrak has garnered seemingly ubiquitous respect for his neck-breaking, jaw-dropping flips of familiar samples. Madlib, 9th Wonder, Ski Beatz, Battlecat—this is a shortlist of revered veteran hip-hop producers who’ve expressed admiration for Sndtrak. On the 32-year-old’s And Then There Was Light… (2021) and his latest, FLIPS V1: Triple Lindy, no TV show theme (“niteridin’), freaky ’80s funk hit (“supafreak”), mothership-made classic (“deepknees”), or blue-eyed soul jam (“nocando”) is safe. Though not conc...
On Squeeze, Sasami Creates Music for High-Fashion Tantrums
In February 2020, Sasami Ashworth packed her acoustic guitar and headed to a songwriter’s retreat in Washington state. The classically-trained musician thought she would return with Joni Mitchell-esque material. The night before the retreat, however, Ashworth found herself in a Los Angeles dive bar where sludge metal band Barishi was performing. As the cymbals and double-kick drum bounced off the venue walls, she was inspired by the band’s energy and aggressive volume. A folk follow-up would have to wait. “I didn’t realize, until I was at that show, that metal might be the certain brand of rock that can convey what I’m trying to achieve,” Ashworth tells SPIN over the phone. When Ashworth arrived at the retreat the next day, she was already writing what would become “Need it to Work.” The s...
How Carson McHone Turns Stripped-Down Country Music Into an Alt Rock Concerto on Still Life
Carson McHone’s dad was a local beer distributor in Austin and knew every bartender on the circuit. In turn, that networking helped her land gigs at honky tonks and dives across the city, until she, with only a handful of biographical songs and no record deal. McHone wound up opening for Shakey Graves in 2015, because they both emerged from the same scene and he took a chance on her “timeless country voice.” Her LP from the same year, Carousel, became an ethereal portrait of Central Texas, something akin to the voices of her fellow underground, regional raconteurs. It was hailed as a country record, but McHone has long wrestled with calling herself a country act, instead of existing somewhere in-between it and indie rock. “I felt like the people around me, who were embodying honky tonk mus...
Twin Cities Heroes Hippo Campus Learn to Zen Out
In the months leading up to the pandemic, the typically carefree dudes in Twin Cities-based indie-rock outfit Hippo Campus hit their breaking point. They’d been touring for more than six years straight, with no more than two-month breaks between shows at any given time. “We were straight-up burnt out,” guitarist Nathan Stocker admits, noting how in addition to the stress of the road, the band was also undergoing managerial changes and “navigating individual and personal relationships issues just trying to maintain just our health and get back to the essence of the band.” As it turned out, “someone was clearly watching out for us,” lead singer Jake Luppen says, and while the pandemic was hardly anyone’s idea of an ideal situation, both Luppen and Stocker believe it was something of a blessi...
Can’t Shake the Stranger Out of Lavender Country
“People always ask me why I chose country music,” Lavender Country’s Patrick Haggerty says. “The truth is, there wasn’t any genre in 1973 that was ready to embrace a queer Marxist!” Lavender Country, his self-titled debut, was the first-ever country record by a gay artist. Selling only 1,000 records at the time, a copy now hangs in the Country Music Hall of Fame library. Almost five decades later, the long-awaited follow-up is due from New Jersey-based label Don Giovanni: Blackberry Rose. I’ve reached Haggerty by phone at his home in Seattle, late enough in the evening that we remark to each other our time to talk is limited: both of our respective partners are in the process of making dinner and eventually will demand we get off the phone and come and eat. Humble and affable during what t...
Beach House’s Descent Into Madness
“I hope I can actually sing and tears aren’t just streaming down my face,” Beach House‘s Victoria Legrand says with a giggle. Over Zoom from their headquarters in Baltimore, Legrand and bandmate Alex Scally appear relaxed and eager for things to return to normal. They haven’t played in front of a live audience in nearly three years. Now, with Beach House’s eighth album, Once Twice Melody, on the way, the duo has a double album’s worth of new material to perform. Legrand says the two of them are “the most prepared we’ve been for a long time to go out and play live.” “[Three years] is a long time in the music industry, which changes and accelerates so quickly. So these shows are gonna feel like, I wanna call it a time party.” “I just hope I don’t have a nervous breakdown from some combi...
Meet Peach PRC, The Internet’s New Favorite Pop Star
In between making TikToks about weird human behavior, living in blissful ignorance of astrology, and Ed Sheeran’s bizarre lyrical choices, Peach PRC is writing magnetic, fascinating, and incredibly catchy pop songs. The latest of these is “God Is A Freak,” which finds Peach investigating God’s so-called “omnipotence,” while pointing out how judgmental people in organized religion can be. And not only that, the song is hilarious, heartfelt, and a bit heavy all at once (“God is a bit of freak/ why’s he watching me getting railed on the couch/ staying pure for a wedding?/ He’s got fucked up priorities”). Peach has been reckoning with the logic and laws of God for a while in her TikTok videos, and “God Is A Freak” is certainly a dramatic statement of curiosity. But having come out as a lesbian...
