Classic Rock News

Gov’t Mule is set to drop their 12th studio album, Peace…Like A River, on Friday, June 16, and it sounds like it wasn’t too hard for frontman Warren Haynes to come up with the title of the record.

“When I was going through all the lyrics, I realized that the word ‘peace’ and the word ‘river’ appear more than anything else, several times in multiple songs,” he tells ABC Audio. “And so I wanted to find something that combined those two things together.”

The title was also inspired by the Paul Simon song “Peace Like a River,” with Haynes noting, “We almost recorded it and we may still at some point.” 

The album was recorded during COVID-19 lockdowns, during the same sessions as 2021’s Heavy Load Blues. Haynes explains they decided to work on both “because we had all this time on our hands and I had written a ton of material, and we couldn’t travel and we couldn’t tour, so it was the best way to utilize our time.” 

Haynes says the pandemic did affect the way he was thinking and feeling while writing the record, but he insists, “I tried not to let it affect the subject matter so much.”

“I didn’t want to write a bunch of COVID-centric songs, but at the same time, that’s what the world was going through,” he shares. “And so I tried to write songs that were universal, but with the mindset that was happening at the time.” 

Peace…Like A River is available for preorder now.

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Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band fans in Washington, DC, will have to wait an additional month before they can see them hit the stage.

It was just announced that The Boss’ August 28 concert at Nationals Park has been postponed to September 29, noting tickets to the original show will be valid for the new date.

No reason for the move was given.

Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band are currently on tour in Europe and are scheduled to play Landgraaf, The Netherlands, on Sunday, June 11. The tour returns to North America with a two-night stand at Chicago’s Wrigley Field, August 9 and 11. A complete list of dates can be found at Springsteen.net.

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Pearl Jam is showing their support for the LGBTQ+ community during Pride Month.

The Seattle rockers are selling a new, limited edition Pride shirt, featuring their classic stickman figure with the band name printed in rainbow colors and the word “Pride” in red at the bottom. 

The T-shirts sell for $34.95, with proceeds going toward “organizations that need our support more than ever amid a wave of repressive anti-LGBTQ+ legislation.”

The T-shirts are on sale now on the band’s website, with shipping set to begin in late June.

Pearl Jam is set to kick off a short tour starting August 31 in St. Paul, Minnesota, wrapping with a two-night stand in Austin, Texas, September 18 and 19. A complete list of dates can be found at pearljam.com.

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The Queen musical We Will Rock You reopened at the London Coliseum this week, and the gala performance featured a special appearance by none other than Queen guitarist Brian May. The rocker rose up to the stage through a trap door in the floor to join the performers for the guitar solo on “Bohemian Rhapsody.”

May shared video of the moment on Instagram, describing it as “just about the greatest gift any guitar player could have.”

“The shot of adrenaline it gives ME is massive – literally knocking the breath out of me,” he writes. “That risky stuff is very similar to jumping off a cliff under a ‘parapente’ wing ( I know, because I’ve done it) or going on the biggest roller coaster in the park (we’ve all done it – right?) – but in this case I’m on my own with no safety net.”

He did add, “[It’s] Not quite so terrifying as playing live on the roof of Buckingham Palace to an audience of half a billion – but not far off.” 

We Will Rock You runs until August 26. Tickets are on sale now.

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A long-in-the-works movie about The Beatles manager Brian Epstein is one step closer to finally hitting the big screen, although it’s now having to get past another hurdle.

Deadline reports the film, Midas Man, is in post production, but it has just brought on its third director, Joe Stephenson, who directed the 2023 film Doctor Jekyll.

Stephenson takes over the project after Vinyl director Sara Sugarman left, reportedly due to creative differences and scheduling problems. She took over the project from Jonas Åkerlund, who left in 2021 following disagreements with producers.

The film stars The Queen’s Gambit’s Jacob Fortune-Lloyd as Epstein, with four newcomers playing the Beatles — Jonah Lees as John Lennon, Blake Richardson as Paul McCartney, Leo Harvey Elledge as George Harrison and Campbell Wallace as Ringo Starr.

In addition to director problems, Deadline reports the film has had issues with funding and scheduling.  

The film’s producer Perry Trevers tells the site, “With principal photography now being finished we are incredibly happy at what has been shot and look forward with excitement at being able to share it with the world.”

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KISS just kicked off the European leg of their End of the Road tour and it’s got Gene Simmons reflecting on the band’s legendary career. In an interview with Good Morning Britain, Simmons says he feels “pride in a half a century of defying the critics.”

“We use them as mulch. You know what that is? You grind ’em up and you put ’em in the dirt. They don’t mean anything,” he shares. “If it was up to critics, we wouldn’t have our favorite things — Star Wars and, you know, all the fun stuff in life. We completely ignored them.”

As for the decision to stop touring, Simmons notes, “You have to have a little pride and self-respect. Know when to get off the stage,” joking, “It’s been half a century, and boy, do I look good.”

He adds, “I can’t tell you how much it means to us to be in front of the fans and put on the spectacle of all spectacles.” 

Finally, he says of the end, “It’s gonna be happy, because of the amazing journey we’ve had, but sad, of course, because it’s gonna be heartbreaking.” 

KISS’ End of the Road tour hits Prague on June 10. They wrap the tour for good December 1 and 2 at Madison Square Garden in New York City. A complete list of dates can be found at kissonline.com.

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Foo Fighters‘ But Here We Are has debuted at #1 on the U.K.’s Official Albums chart.

The latest from Dave Grohl and company takes the top spot after an intense battle with Noel Gallagher‘s Council Skies, the ex-Oasis guitarist’s new record with his High Flying Birds solo band. At one point over the past week, OfficialCharts.com reported that the two albums were within 200 units of each other.

Not only does But Here We Are give the Foos their sixth #1 album across the pond, it also ends a historic streak of #1s for Gallagher in his home country. Between Oasis’ run and his first three High Flying Birds records, Gallagher had notched a record-setting 10-straight U.K. #1 studio albums.

But Here We Are is the first Foo Fighters album since the death of drummer Taylor Hawkins in March 2022. It also debuted at #1 in Australia.

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Neil Young recently revealed he’s hitting the road this summer on a West Coast solo tour, and now we have the dates. 

Young’s Coastal Tour, featuring special guest Chris Pierce, will consist of 13 dates, kicking off with a four-night stand at Los Angeles’ John Anson Ford Theatre on July 1, 2, 4 and 5.

The tour will hit California cities like Santa Barbara, San Diego and Paso Robles, plus stops in Washington and Oregon, before wrapping July 23 in Napa, California. A complete list of dates can be found at neilyoungarchives.com.

Tickets for all shows go on sale Wednesday, June 14, at 10 a.m. local time. To cut down on scalping, tickets purchased through Ticketmaster can only be resold through Ticketmaster’s Face Value Exchange.

As previously reported, Young revealed in a Zoom with Neil Young Archives subscribers that the tour will focus on songs he hasn’t actually played live before. The tour will be Young’s first since before the pandemic. 

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Eric Clapton is giving fans another taste of his upcoming box set The Definitive 24 Nights, dropping June 23. The latest is a previously unseen performance, “Key to the Highway (Live At Royal Albert Hall).” 

The Definitive 24 Nights features six hours of music from Clapton’s historic 24-night run at London’s Royal Albert Hall in 1991, including 35 never-before-released performances. During the run, Clapton performed with three lineups — a rock band, a blues band and an orchestra; “Key to the Highway” was featured in the blues section of the shows.

The Definitive 24 Nights will be released in a six-CD or eight-LP set. There will also be standalone versions of each genre — 24 Nights: Rock, 24 Nights: Blues and 24 Nights: Orchestra. All options are available for preorder now.

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On This Day, June 9, 1978…

The Rolling Stones released the album Some Girls, which was their first album to feature guitarist Ronnie Wood as a full-time member.

The album, which went to #1 in the U.S., featured the #1 song “Miss You,” along with future classics “Beat of Burden,” which peaked at #8 on the chart, and “Shattered.”

There was some controversy surrounding the album’s artwork, which featured the band members in drag, alongside pictures of famous females like Lucille Ball, Farrah Fawcett, Liza Minelli, Marilyn Monroe and more. Several of them threatened to sue over the use of their likeness without permission, and the cover was reissued without the celebrities images.

In marking the anniversary of the Some Girls release on Instagram, the band noted that the album “became the longest-running studio album on the American chart in the Stones history,” adding it was their first studio album to earn a Grammy nod for Album of the Year.

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