Classic Rock News

Gov’t Mule is going to be celebrating Aerosmith this Halloween.

The band just announced the theme for this year’s Mule-O-Ween, sharing artwork inspired by the Aerosmith logo, along with an Instagram post that drops several references to Aerosmith songs.

“Mule-O-Ween returns!” the band writes. “Get ready for two nights filled with Sweet Emotion and plenty of deep cuts from one of rock & roll’s most iconic catalogs — reimagined, stretched out, and Mule-ified in ways only this band can deliver.”

They add, “If you Dream On about the perfect Halloween soundtrack, this is it.”

Gov’t Mule’s two-night Mule-O-Ween festivities are happening Oct. 31 in Washington, DC, and Nov. 1 in Philadelphia.

Tickets for the shows are on sale now. Gov’t Mule notes, “Tickets won’t last long — don’t be Last Child in line!”

The inspiration for this year’s theme may have come from Gov’t Mule’s current tour, dubbed the Back in the Saddle tour. “Back in the Saddle” is a track on Aerosmith’s fourth studio album, 1976’s Rocks.

The Back in the Saddle tour hits Toronto on Wednesday. A complete list of dates can be found at Mule.net.

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Paul Mescal is set to play Paul McCartney in Sam Mendes’ upcoming Beatles films, and he revealed in a new interview with IndieWire that he has had a chance to meet the two-time Rock & Roll Hall of Famer.

“He’s an extraordinary man,” Mescal shares, “like to spend any time — it’s a crazy sentence to say that I’ve spent time with that man, let alone play him.”

Mescal also confirmed that we will be hearing his voice in the films. Asked whether he plans to do his own singing, he replied, “Yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah.”

Mendes’ Beatles films, titled The Beatles – A Four-Film Cinematic Event, will be released in April 2028, with each film being told from a different band member’s point of view.

In addition to Mescal, the movies will star Harris Dickinson as John Lennon, Barry Keoghan as Ringo Starr and Joseph Quinn as George Harrison.

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The 50th anniversary of Little Feat’s fifth studio album, The Last Record Album, is being celebrated with a new deluxe reissue.

Dropping Oct. 24, The Last Record Album (Deluxe Edition) will feature a newly remastered version of the original album, along with bonus material that includes previously unreleased tracks, early sketches, raw demos and alternate takes.

The deluxe edition will be released digitally and as a four-CD or two-LP set. The four-CD release will also include a recording of the band’s Oct. 31, 1975, concert at Boston’s Orpheum Theatre, which was recorded just two weeks after the album’s release.

As a preview of the set, Little Feat has released a previously unheard, alternative version of “Long Distance Love” to digital outlets, with a restored video now streaming on YouTube.

The Last Record Album (Deluxe Edition) is available for preorder now.

Also being released on Oct. 24 is a standalone CD of a previously unreleased Little Feat concert, recorded at the Charlton Athletic Football Ground in May 1976. It is available for preorder on Rhino.com.

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Blondie’s Debbie Harry is giving fans some insight into the band’s upcoming album.

In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Harry confirms that the album’s called High Noon and says fans should expect some variety on the record, which is normal for a Blondie album.

“I think our tradition has always been to cover a lot of different styles and to embody some different moods. So in that respect, it’s a very traditional Blondie album,” she says. “I think the thing that makes people carry on with us is that we’re excited about what we do, and we work hard at it, and it’s not sort of like, oh, well, I guess let’s do [an album].”

She adds, “We write songs. We write stuff that’s about our lives and about today.”

Harry also reveals that Sex Pistols’ Glen Matlock, who’s been playing bass with them since 2022, has contributed a song called “Sleepwalking” to the record.

“It’s just a wonderful song, and it really sticks in your head,” she says. “It reminds me of his contribution to the Sex Pistols; it has that feel to it. It’s a great, simple, three-chord, four-chord song with a great feel.”
 

Harry says the album contains “some really great dance music,” noting, “It’s very rock and roll, but yet, we’ve always managed to squeeze in elements of other sounds in music and other styles of music, other moods of music.”

“And Blondie has always done that,” she adds. “We’ve always embodied the present. So it feels like Blondie.”

So far there’s no word on exactly when Blondie will release High Noon. It will be the band’s first album since 2017’s Pollinator.

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Farm Aid is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, and if fans can’t make it to Minneapolis to see the concert in person, they’ll be able to enjoy it from the comfort of their own home.

Farm Aid just announced that the annual benefit concert, taking place Sept. 20 at Huntington Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, will broadcast live on CNN.

The broadcast will feature performances by Farm Aid board members Willie Nelson, Neil Young, John Mellencamp, Dave Matthews and Margo Price. Young will be performing with his band Chrome Hearts, while Matthews will perform with frequent collaborator Tim Reynolds. The broadcast will also include behind-the-scenes interviews and stories from local farmers.

The concert will begin at 6 p.m. CT, and will also stream live on nugs.net and FarmAid.org.

The first Farm Aid concert was held on Sept. 22, 1985, in Champaign, Illinois. Since then, the Farm Aid organization has raised nearly $80 million to help American farmers.

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David Byrne has shared another single from his upcoming solo album, Who is the Sky? The latest is the track “What is the Reason For It?,” a collaboration with Paramore frontwoman Hayley Williams.

“When we were finishing up the record, the producer Kid Harpoon and I were wondering, ‘Oh, maybe this song, it’s a love song, or at least it’s asking what is love, what it’s about?'” Byrne told People. “Why do we do this? Why do other people do it? Do we know anything about it?”

Byrne and Williams have stayed in touch since Paramore covered “Burning Down the House” for a 2024 album in celebration of the Talking Heads concert film Stop Making Sense. He tells People he simply texted Williams to see if she wanted to sing on “What is the Reason For It?” and she agreed, with Byrne adding, “She killed it.”

“What is the Reason For It?” is available now via digital outlets. A video, which uses AI to animate original drawings by Byrne, is streaming on YouTube.

Who is the Sky?, Byrne’s first solo album since 2018’s American Utopia, drops Friday. 

Byrne is set to kick off a new tour in support of the album on Sept. 14 in Providence, Rhode Island, wrapping with two nights in Miami on Dec. 5 and 6. A complete list of dates can be found at DavidByrne.com.

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Queen‘s Brian May has teamed The Struts for a new version of the U.K. band’s breakout hit “Could Have Been Me.” 

May shreds a guitar solo on the updated track, which also includes an extended outro.

“Working with Luke [Spiller] and The Struts has been a joyous journey for me,” May previously shared. “I became obsessed with this great song ever since I was inspired by the original version and felt an uncontrollable urge to mess with it! It carries a great positive message for rebellious kids of all ages. And, together, WE ROCK!!”

The song is now available via digital outlets. In addition, a video featuring May performing with The Struts is on YouTube.

The original “Could Have Been Me” was released in 2013 in the U.K. before it became a hit in the U.S. in 2015. It appears on the band’s debut album, Everybody Wants, and was later featured in the 2021 animated movie Sing 2.

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Jack Osbourne is firing back at Roger Waters in response to the Pink Floyd founder’s comments regarding Jack’s late father, Ozzy Osbourne.

Waters brought up the Prince of Darkness during an interview with The Independent Ink, saying, “Ozzy Osbourne, who just died, bless him, in his whatever that state that he was in his whole life, we’ll never know.”

“Although he was all over the TV for hundreds of years with his idiocy and nonsense,” Waters continued. “The music … I couldn’t give a f***. I don’t care about Black Sabbath, I never did. I have no interest in biting the heads off chickens or whatever they do.”

The interviewer did point out that Ozzy was known for biting the head off a bat, not a chicken. In responding to Waters, Jack seems less concerned with him mixing up flying creatures than he is with the overall tone of the comments.

“Hey Roger Waters F*** You,” Jack writes in a Facebook post. “How pathetic and out of touch you’ve become. The only way you seem to get attention these days is by vomiting out bulls*** in the press.”

The younger Osbourne adds, “My father always thought you were a c*** – thanks for proving him right.”

Jack’s sister Kelly Osbourne previously criticized pro wrestler Becky Lynch‘s comments regarding Ozzy and his hometown, calling her a “disrespectful dirtbag.”

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On This Day, Sept. 3, 2002 …

The Rolling Stones kicked off their Licks Tour in Boston. The tour was in support of their 40th anniversary compilation album, Forty Licks, with the band playing 80 different songs throughout the course of the tour.

The trek featured a whole host of A-list openers, including AC/DC, Pretenders, No Doubt, Elvis Costello, The White Stripes, Sheryl Crow and John Mellencamp.

The tour’s stop at New York’s Madison Square Garden was broadcast on HBO.

The Licks Tour, which wrapped in Hong Kong in November 2003, grossed $300 million, which at the time was the second-highest-grossing tour of all time, behind The Stones’ 1994-95 Voodoo Lounge Tour.

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As Paul McCartney is getting ready to revisit the Wings era of his career with an upcoming book and documentary, the rocker is revealing some of the Wings deep cuts he loves that may not be on a fan’s radar.

In the latest Q&A on McCartney’s website, a fan asked the Rock & Roll Hall of Famer to name his favorite “deep cut” Wings track, with the writer noting his was “Daytime Nighttime Suffering,” a favorite of McCartney’s late wife, Linda McCartney.

“‘Daytime Nighttime Suffering’ is one of my favorites, as it was Linda’s,” Sir Paul replied about the track, which was a B-side to the 1979 single “Goodnight Tonight.” “But another song I like a lot is ‘Arrow Through Me,'” from the 1979 album Back to the Egg.

He added, “It is lovely to see these songs reappear from time to time, mainly when they are used in a film or TV show. I think a lot of young people discover my songs this way.”

McCartney recently highlighted both songs, as well as other deep cuts and B-sides, in a Sticking Out of My Back Pocket playlist on Spotify, which was described as “a celebration of home recordings, alternate takes, and the kind of tracks hidden deep within Paul’s discography.”

And fans are about to learn a lot more about McCartney’s post-Beatles career, including the formation of Wings.

It is the subject of the new documentary Man on the Run, which just had its world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival. It will be released in select theaters and then stream on Prime Video starting Feb. 25, 2026.

McCartney will also release a new book about that time in his life. Wings: The Story of a Band on the Run will be released Nov. 4.

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