Classic Rock News

Jethro Tull is set to release a new album, Curious Ruminant, on March 7. It will feature nine new tracks, including a tune called “Drink From The Same Well,” which is almost 17 minutes long.

The band is offering their first preview of the record with the release of the album’s title track and an accompanying video, directed by Costin Chioreanu. 

Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson began work on Curious Ruminant not long after the release of the band’s 2023 album RökFlöte, writing brand new songs and using some unfinished instrumental demos recorded years ago. 

Joining Anderson on the album is former Jethro Tull keyboardist Andrew Giddings and drummer James Duncan, as well as current band members David Goodier, John O’Hara and Scott Hammond, and guitarist Jack Clark, who is making his recording debut with the band.

Curious Ruminant will be released in a variety of formats, including CD, vinyl and transparent grape vinyl. There are also two limited-edition deluxe sets, both of which include alternative stereo mixes of the album, a Blu-ray with Dolby Atmos and 5.1 surround sound, plus interview material. 

Curious Ruminant is available for preorder now.

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Metallica has announced the single-day ticket details for the No Repeat Weekend shows on the 2025 North American leg of their ongoing M72 tour.

As with previous legs, the No Repeat Weekend shows consist of two concerts over a single weekend in one city, each featuring a completely unique set list.

When the 2025 dates first went on sale, you could only buy No Repeat Weekend tickets in a two-show bundle. Now Metallica has announced that you can buy tickets for individual shows on Jan. 17 at 10 a.m. local time.

If you’re a member of the Metallica fan club, you can access a presale beginning Jan. 13 at 9 a.m. local time.

For all ticket info, visit Metallica.com.

Metallica’s 2025 North American tour launches in April. 

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On This Day, Jan. 10, 2023 …

Legendary guitarist Jeff Beck passed away at the age of 78 after contracting bacterial meningitis. 

Beck came to prominence as a member of The Yardbirds, but went on to have a successful solo career, fronting his own Jeff Beck Group.

Considered by many to be one of the greatest guitar players of all time, Beck won six Grammys for best rock instrumental performance, plus additional wins for best pop instrumental performance and best pop collaboration with vocals. 

He was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame twice, in 1992 as a member of The Yardbirds and again in 2009 for his solo work.

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Ringo Starr’s new country album, Look Up, is out now, and to celebrate Ringo has dropped the video for the album’s title track, which features a guest appearance by Molly Tuttle.

According to a press release, the video, directed by Wyndham Garnett, was inspired not only by the song’s lyrics, but by Ringo’s mission of sharing peace and love. It features a diverse group of people gathered in a field, as they dance, share the love and simply look up into the sun-filled sky. It ends with an aerial view, revealing that they are forming a peace sign. 

The album Look Up, co-written and produced by T Bone Burnett, was recorded last year in Los Angeles and Nashville. It’s made up of 11 songs, with special guest appearances by Tuttle, Billy Strings, Lucius, Larkin Poe and Alison Krauss. The Eagles‘ Joe Walsh, who is Ringo’s brother-in-law, also played on the album.

Ringo is set to celebrate the release of Look Up with shows at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium, billed as Ringo Starr & Friends, on Jan. 14 and Jan. 15. He’ll also hit the road with his All-Starr Band, starting June 12 in Bridgeport, Connecticut. A complete list of dates can be found at ringostarr.com.
 

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From blues and folk, to rock and pop, to standards and swing, it seems like Rod Stewart has done it all, and as he turns 80 on Jan. 10, he has no plans to slow down.

While his 2025 tour is called One Last Time, the two-time Rock & Roll Hall of Famer said in November he’ll be making some changes to his schedule, but he’s not going to hang up his microphone. “This will be the end of large-scale world tours for me, but I have no desire to retire. I love what I do and I do what I love,”
he wrote.

“I’m fit, have a full head of hair and can run 100 meters in 18 seconds at the jolly old age of 79,” he boasted.

2025 is shaping up to be a very busy year for Rod the Mod, who’s sold 120 million records worldwide and scored a string of U.S. top-10 hits, including the number ones “Tonight’s the Night (Gonna Be Alright),” “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?,” “Maggie May” and “All For Love,” a collaboration with Sting and Bryan Adams.

Rod is going to perform at the U.K.’s biggest festival, Glastonbury, on June 29. He also has a couple of co-headlining shows with Billy Joel lined up, including a concert at New York’s Yankee Stadium in July, and he’ll kick off a new round of Las Vegas residency shows at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace in March.

On top of that, Rod continues to promote his signature brand of whisky, Wolfie’s, and enjoy his huge family, including wife Penny Lancaster, his various ex-wives and partners, his eight children and his three grandchildren.

In his November post, Rod also said that he’s already planning a 2026 tour in which he’ll perform songs from his bestselling collection of Great American Songbook albums, as well as his most recent release, Swing Fever, which hit #1 in his native U.K.

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Director James Mangold is known for making movies about musicians, like Walk the Line about Johnny Cash and his recent release, the Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown. So what music has played a pivotal role in his life?

In a new interview with NME, Mangold shared the music that he considers the soundtrack to his life, and it includes Bruce Springsteen and R.E.M. 

Mangold says the first concert he ever went to was Springsteen in 1980, just a few days after the death of The Beatles‘ John Lennon.

“I could only afford nosebleed seats but I was so thrilled to be seeing Springsteen, who was a hero of mine. Still is,” he says. “Honestly, the music sounded like s*** from where I was in the rafters, but just seeing him in real life, existing, standing there on the edge of the stage, it was thrilling.”

He adds, “Springsteen is a touchstone for me. There’s incredible economy of storytelling in his songwriting.”

Mangold also reveals that R.E.M.’s “It’s The End of the World As We Know It” is the song he can’t get out of his head, while “The Bare Necessities” from The Jungle Book is the first song he remembers hearing and Glen Campbell‘s “Wichita Lineman” is the song he wants played at his funeral.

Boston’s 1976 self-titled debut was the first album he ever bought, although he notes, “The best song is ‘More Than A Feeling,’ obviously. The album immediately goes downhill after that.”

And Cash also plays a part in Mangold’s soundtrack, with the director sharing that “A Boy Named Sue” is his go-to karaoke tune, mostly because he’s a baritone. He says he loves singing “anything by Johnny Cash,” noting “that’s in my range.”

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Former Genesis guitarist Steve Hackett is set to release the new live album Live Magic At Trading Boundaries on Jan. 17, and he’s just shared another track from the release.

The latest is a live performance of the song “Jacuzzi,” which originally appeared on his 1980 solo album, Defector.

Live Magic At Trading Boundaries is a compilation of various recordings taken from years of shows at the intimate venue in Sussex, England, with Hackett performing stripped down versions of classic tracks, including solo material, and Genesis tunes like “Blood On The Rooftops” and “Horizons.”

Hackett has been playing Trading Boundaries yearly since 2016, and ahead of the release he’ll play shows there on Jan. 18 and Jan. 19. A complete list of tour dates can be found at hackettsongs.com.

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David Lee Roth’s solo career is being revisited in a new box set from Rhino.

The Warner Recordings 1985-1994 will include Roth’s first five solo records, including his debut solo EP, 1985’s Crazy from the Heat, which was a top-15 hit for Roth. It included such hit tracks as “Just a Gigolo/I Ain’t Got Nobody,” which peaked at #12, and a cover of The Beach Boys’ “California Girls,” which hit #3.

The set also includes 1986’s Eat ‘Em and Smile; 1988’s Skyscraper, which featured the top-10 hit “Just Like Paradise”; 1991’s A Little Ain’t Enough; and 1994’s Your Filthy Little Mouth.

The Warner Recordings 1985-1994 will be released Feb. 21 in a variety of formats, including digitally and as a five-CD set. There will also be a five-LP version sold exclusively at Rhino.com. All versions are available for preorder now.

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Before the new year, Elton John told ABC’s Good Morning America that he wasn’t sure about the status of new music because of his eyesight issues. But it seems he’s not going to let that problem stand in his way.

Speaking to Deadline, Elton says, “Yep. I still love playing the piano. That’s going to happen and I’m waiting to get back in the studio. I can’t wait to release new stuff. So yeah, all is good. I’m raring to go.”

For now, though, Elton’s happy about his duet with Brandi Carlile “Never Too Late,” from his Disney+ documentary of the same name. The song has made the Oscars short list for best original song, and he says if it is nominated, he’ll definitely perform it at the ceremony on ABC March 2.

“It’ll be the first time I’ve ever played it live, so it’ll be great,” he says.

But in addition to another Oscar nomination — if he receives a nod, it’ll be his fourth — Elton says he’s looking forward to some other projects, as well as getting his “eyesight a little better.”

“We have some irons in the fire that’s pretty lucky,” he teased. “And I can’t reveal them yet, but they will be revealed soon.”

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Heart‘s Nancy Wilson had quite a reaction to Led Zeppelin the first time she and her sister and bandmate, Ann Wilson, saw the band in concert.

While speaking to Premiere Guitar for the Jimmy Page episode of their 100 Guitarists podcast, Nancy shares that in May 1969 they went to see Fifth Dimension at the Green Lake Aqua Theater in Seattle, where Led Zeppelin was the opening act. They actually walked out because they thought frontman Robert Plant was being too racy.

“We were like, ‘Oh my God, the singer, he’s so suggestive,’” she said. “He’s got his shirt wide open, he’s got his bare chest and his jeans were really low riders and he was moving in this way that was so super-suggestive and we were kind of, like, shocked.” 

She adds, “We were in a little folk band at the time, so we were from the suburbs, right. So we were kind of square, square little hippie chicks to be unenlightened, let’s just say. And so, we were like, ‘Oh, they’re so lewd. They’re just being so suggestive and lewd.'” 

But what put it over the top was Zeppelin’s performance of “The Lemon Song,” a track that appeared on their album Led Zeppelin II.

“Then he sang about, like, ‘squeeze my lemon’ and we’re like, ‘Oh, we must leave, we must leave the premises’ because we were just shocked,” she said. “We were scandalized, and we had seen enough and we walked away.”

Their thoughts on Led Zeppelin apparently changed at some point. In fact, Ann and Nancy paid tribute to Led Zeppelin when they received the Kennedy Center Honors in 2012, performing the classic “Stairway to Heaven,” which featured Jason Bonham, son of Led Zeppelin’s late drummer John Bonham. The performance earned a standing ovation from Plant and later went viral on YouTube.

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