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Wolf Alice Announce 2021 US Tour

Last updated: 4 Jun 2021, 17:25:54
Published: 4 Jun 2021, 17:25:54
Written by: Bree Wilde
Photography by: Erica Lauren
Categories: Tour Dates Tagged: Wolf Alice

Happy album release day to Brit alt-rockers Wolf Alice! In addition to releasing their third studio LP, Blue Weekend , the band have also announced a string of US tour dates. The 18-date trek kicks off October 25 in Seattle and wraps up November 20 in Atlanta. The band will play two nights in a row in Los Angeles, Denver, NYC and DC.

Wolf Alice 2021 Tour Dates:

10/25 – Seattle, WA @ Showbox Market

10/26 – Portland, OR @ Crystal Ballroom

10/28 – Los Angeles, CA @ Teragram Ballroom

10/29 – Los Angeles, CA @ Teragram Ballroom

10/30 – San Francisco, CA @ August Hall

11/01 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Grand at The Complex

11/03 – Denver, CO @ Bluebird Theater

11/04 – Denver, CO @ Bluebird Theater

11/06 – Minneapolis, MN @ Fine Line

11/08 – Chicago, IL @ The Vic

11/09 – Columbus, OH @ Newport

11/11 – Boston, MA @ Paradise Rock Club

11/12 – New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom

11/13 – New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom

11/15 – Washington, DC @ Union Stage

11/16 – Washington, DC @ Union Stage

11/18 – Nashville, TN @ Cannery Ballroom

11/20 – Atlanta, GA @ Terminal West

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'They are just absolutely incredible': Wolf Alice manager Stephen Taverner talks global ambitions for Mercury Prize winners

Wolf Alice are already enjoying a sales boost for their Mercury Prize-winning album , Visions Of A Life, which is riding high on iTunes. With 57,866 sales to date, according to the Official Charts Company, the band’s sophomore album is set for lift-off following its victory on Thursday (September 20) - we’ll find out later today (September 24) how it fares in the Midweek charts, along with their Mercury-nominated debut My Love Is Cool and Don’t Delete The Kisses, which the band performed during the ceremony.

In the latest issue of Music Week we talk to team Wolf Alice - including the band and Dirty Hit founder Jamie Oborne - about their Mercury victory. Here, East City Management’s founder, Stephen Taverner , outlines the ambitions for the indie rockers following their triumph…

How can Wolf Alice build on the success of Visions Of A Life so far with this win?

“The first place I need to go is into the record company and say, ‘We need to up the budget’. Now on the back of this, you need to reinforce it - that will be a big priority like we did with Alt-j when they won it [in 2012]."

Are you expecting a significant sales boost?

“Yeah, it’s definitely got a chance to do that. There’s a lot of work to do, it’s not just a case that you win it and then it’s instant, not every time anyway. Hopefully this is going to do us a lot of good.”

The campaign launched well over a year ago, does this mean that will be extended?

“The touring is wrapping up at the end of the year. I just said to Jamie from Dirty Hit that we need to think about what we’re going to do, we need to put something out and make sure we get behind the win.”

Visions Of A Life was widely acclaimed as a body of work upon release, were you glad to see it recognised by the Mercury judges?

“Yeah, it needs to be listened to as an album as well, it would be very important for people to get the whole picture. It’s intelligent, it’s totally deserving as a record to win this prize. I never had any idea [it would win], I don’t think anyone can. When it’s being judged in that side room, it’s difficult to know what they’re thinking.”

We need to put something out and make sure we get behind the win Stephen Taverner

The band celebrated in style too…

“Yeah, they are just absolutely incredible. They have been on the road non-stop for what feels like five years, it probably feels like 10 years to them. Yeah, it’s a testament to the band really.”

Will the win help the band internationally?

“The US is building, it’s getting there, hopefully there will be a ripple effect there. We’ve got a bit of work to do in Europe but this will definitely help.”

Dirty Hit are obviously very supportive on the label side, how’s the band’s publishing business?

“They re-signed with Kobalt because they just love the experience, they’ve got a great relationship.”

Does this Mercury result signal a rock revival ?

“I think we need a song revival. And those songs can come in many shapes and sizes. This album shows they are amazing songwriters, which is why I think it has got legs as well. They will go a long way writing songs like that. They’re also experimenting all the time as well, which is great.”

With two consecutive nominations and now a Mercury win, are you confident they can become a band with a long career?

“Absolutely - 1,000%. We are only just get started.”

Are there any plans yet for the third record?

“They are always writing but nothing yet.”

To read Music Week ’s 2017 feature with Wolf Alice on Visions Of A Life click here . For our 2018 Mercury Prize highlights click here .

For more stories like this, and to keep up to date with all our market leading news, features and analysis, sign up to receive our daily Morning Briefing newsletter

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We caught Wolf Alice last year as they toured behind 2021’s Blue Weekend , and we’re convinced it’s a show you can’t miss. Thankfully, the band has announced another run of tour dates for spring of 2022 that will see them coming back to the U.S. to play bigger rooms than ever, including a date at Red Rocks opening for Bleachers and the Hollywood Bowl opening for Halsey.

Tickets go on sale Friday, February 4th at 10a local time. Revisit Melodic’s chat with drummer Joel Amey from last year here .

Wolf Alice 2022 Tour Dates: 03/21 – Atlanta, GA @ The Buckhead Theatre 03/22 – Chapel Hill, NC @ Cat’s Cradle 03/24 – Asbury Park, NJ @ The Stone Pony 03/25 – Hamden, CT @ Space Ballroom 03/26 – Harrisburg, PA @ Harrisburg University XL Live 03/28 – Montreal, QB @ Corona Theatre 03/29 – Toronto, ON @ Opera House 03/30 – Cleveland, OH @ Beachland Ballroom 04/01 – Pittsburgh, PA @ Stage AE 04/02 – Grand Rapids, MI @ Elevation 04/05 – Indianapolis, IN @ Deluxe 04/06 – Madison, WI @ Majestic 04/08 – Des Moines, IA @ Wooly’s 04/11 – Lincoln, NE @ Bourbon Theatre 04/12 – St. Louis, MO @ Delmar Hall 04/14 – Austin, TX @ Emo’s 04/15 – Dallas, TX @ The Echo Lounge & Music Hall 04/16 – Houston, TX @ House of Blues 06/20 – Morrison, CO @ Red Rocks Amphitheatre * 06/21 – Los Angeles, CA @ Hollywood Bowl +

* = w/ Bleachers + = w/ Halsey

Keep up with Wolf Alice: Twitter / Instagram / Facebook

blue weekend

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Wolf Alice Announce 2022 North American Tour Dates

Jamie Reddy

[READ FULL BIO]

Wolf Alice announce further North American 2022 tour dates

Tickets go on sale tomorrow (March 18)

Wolf Alice have announced a new set of North American tour dates for September and October – tickets will be available from here .

The London four-piece are already due to tour the continent later this month and into April in support of their third studio album, ‘Blue Weekend’ .

READ MORE: Your favourite artists on what NME means to them: “It’s always had a special place in our hearts”

Wolf Alice will then head back to the US and Canada for a series of live dates in late September and through October.

Kicking off at New York City’s Terminal 5 on September 27, the tour will visit such cities as Boston, Detroit, Chicago, Denver and Vancouver before concluding in San Francisco on October 17.

North America Fall Tour 💙 Tickets on sale this Friday 18th 10am local. https://t.co/LEsYYtupt1 pic.twitter.com/qrLem6JQ8W — Wolf Alice (@wolfalicemusic) March 15, 2022

Tickets for Wolf Alice’s latest set of North American tour dates will go on sale tomorrow (March 18) at 10am local time, and you’ll be able to find tickets here .

You can see Wolf Alice’s newly announced North American live dates below.

October 1 – Empire Live, Albany, NY 3 – Newport Music Hall, Columbus, OH 4 – St. Andrew’s Hall, Detroit, MI 6 – Riviera Theatre, Chicago, IL 7 – The Fillmore, Minneapolis, MN 8 – The Truman, Kansas City, Mo 10 – Ogden Theatre, Denver, CO 11 – Complex – Grand, Salt Lake City, UT 13 – Showbox SODO, Seattle, WA 14 – Commodore, Vancouver, BC 15 – Crystal Ballroom, Portland, OR 17 – The Fillmore, San Francisco, CA

Wolf Alice were recently named on the line-up for Glastonbury 2022 , while they will also play at Reading & Leeds Festival this summer – you can find tickets for the latter here .

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Photo: Jordan Hemingway

Wolf Alice On Their Rock Evolution, Why The Studio Is A "Toy Shop" & Their New Album 'Blue Weekend'

GRAMMY-nominated English rockers Wolf Alice were bundles of nerves when they cut their first album, but their vibrant, new release, 'Blue Weekend,' displays their facility as studio tinkerers

What's the greatest opening track on a debut album? Is it the Beatles ' "I Saw Her Standing There"? Guns N' Roses ' "Welcome to the Jungle"? N.W.A.'s "Straight Outta Compton" ? Whatever's your favorite, chances are it's the sound of a young, hungry artist with a chip on their shoulder and something to prove—not to mention full of jitters about being in a studio.

For better or worse, that's exactly what Wolf Alice sounded like on their 2015 debut album, My Love is Cool —and they readily admit it.

" It's a mixture of nerves, anticipation, excitement, and rage kind of blurring into one project," drummer Joel Amey tells GRAMMY.com. From an adjacent Zoom square, lead vocalist and guitarist Ellie Rowsell echoes his statement. "We're 10 times better than we were when we started off," she says. "For [bassist] Theo [Ellis] , Joel and I, we were very new to our instruments, weren't we?" (Guitarist Joff Oddie rounds out the quartet.)

Flash-forward to 2021, and Wolf Alice are stumping for their third album, Blue Weekend , which dropped June 4 on the British indie label Dirty Hit. On tracks like "Lipstick on the Glass," "How Can I Make It OK?" and "The Beach II," the GRAMMY-nominated alternative rockers' studio vision finally catches up to their ambition—which they were never lacking in the first place.

Plus, they have a new, crack producer—three-time GRAMMY winner Markus Dravs —on the case. "When you're a garage band at home, you have vague ideas of reverbs and things like that," Amey says with a laugh. "It was really fun to explore those things with people who actually know what they're doing."

Throughout the interview, Amey and Rowsell speak with a sense of awe about the mechanics of music-making, from nicking a Sufjan Stevens guitar sound to paying homage to the Roches' "Hammond Song" to drifting along on an Arthur-Russell-style drum loop.

GRAMMY.com caught up with Wolf Alice's Ellie Rowsell and Joel Amey to discuss the creative trajectory that led to Blue Weekend , why the mercurial-yet-democratic Fleetwood Mac is a fount of inspiration, and how a demo blooms into a full-fledged track.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Wolf Alice | Photo: Jordan Hemingway

Congrats on the new album. How do you feel?

Rowsell: Super excited. It crept up on us, hasn't it?

Amey: It really has, yeah.

Is there a release show of any type? Or are you still doing the virtual thing a year and a half into this situation?

Amey: In the U.K., we can do a socially distanced thing; a very small capacity can come in. I actually went to one last Friday. It was cool to hear live music, but it was sort of strange. It was a bit like an examination hall layout in terms of tables and a rock band playing.

How do you feel the band has developed creatively across your three albums?

Rowsell: God, I feel like it's probably easier for someone else to hear it rather than us. We've been, obviously, fully immersed in being us as a band. But I think we've gotten better, for sure. As musicians, we're 10 times better than we were when we started off. For Theo, Joel and I, we were very new to our instruments, weren't we?

Amey: That's a polite way of describing how we were.

Rowsell: I think we sound better. [Knowing laugh] .

How would you describe yourselves at the beginning—perhaps from the standpoint of your limitations?

Amey: I think we've always been in our own world—ambitious, considering what we can do. Maybe when we started—I don't know if "ideas bigger than our stations" is the right phrase—but we've always thought of the little details, I think. My Love is Cool was done in four weeks, and it's a mixture of nerves, anticipation, excitement, and rage kind of blurring into one project.

Then, Visions of a Life —actually, our guitarist, Joff, said something that was kind of interesting: It's quite experimental by our standards. We went on loads of different tangents and we were encouraged to have a real adventure in the studio by Justin [Meldal-Johnsen], our producer, who was super encouraging about going down the rabbit hole of loads of ideas.

I feel like there's a lot of each person's personality in Blue Weekend . We've kind of distilled it down to what we appreciate from songwriting and being in the studio. It's more focused.

On the topic of anticipation and nerves, I think of the Beatles or Joy Division on their debut singles. They sound jittery like they can't believe they're in the studio.

Amey: Yeah, it's like a toy shop for people, isn't it? When you're a garage band at home, you have vague ideas of reverbs and things like that. It was really fun to explore those things with people who actually know what they're doing. [Chuckles.] You get tips!

Which wells were you drawing from for Blue Weekend ? Who—or what—were your inspirations, or archetypes in rock history?

Rowsell: [Long ponder.] I think we were thinking a lot about Fleetwood Mac and how, despite being a kind of rock band in many ways—or a guitar band, at least—[they] wrote these massive pop songs. They're a perfect marriage of the two genres, and that's inspiring to me, I think, in the same way that the Band are to us. Yeah, lots of stuff. All over stuff.

I don't feel like there's one thing that's overarching. It's here and there. We take inspiration from multiple different artists.

What are some of your favorite moments on Blue Weekend ? Let's start with "The Beach."

Rowsell: Well, I love call-and-response. [Laughs.] So, I'm glad we got call-and-response on the album. When I listen back to that bit of the song, I imagine hundreds of people chanting it. I think we tried to make it sound a bit like that as well. It was always kind of funny! I'm proud of us that we were like, "Yeah, let's make it sound like hundreds of people are chanting this thing!"

Amey: I think it's one of the few songs we have where all four of us recorded vocals.

How about "Delicious Things"?

Amey: I think "Delicious Things" was a bit of a breakthrough moment for us when recording. We started working with a revered producer, Markus [Dravs]. We didn't do too much hanging out and drinking together. Your first relationship is making something off the bat and hitting "record." That's kind of how we started this.

We got to a stage where we listened back to what we were recording, listened to "Delicious Things" and said, "Maybe we're holding back a bit?" He said, "Less is more," and we had this thing about "Less is more." Then we decided, "No." This was the moment where we plugged in a MIDI keyboard and put on trumpets, put on strings, and just went for it.

I think there was something in the four of us we weren't quite doing up until that point. From then on, we had a new confidence to write the songs in a maximalist way if we wanted to. Not having to strip every song back to, like, four people, which we maybe tried to do at one point.

Moving on to "Lipstick on the Glass." Any thoughts or stories about that tune?

Rowsell: Yeah, we kind of struggled with this one.

We had a demo version, which was soft and slightly electronic, and we had a full-band version. I think Markus at one point said, "It sounds like Las Vegas," which we weren't really happy about! We got into the studio, split between these two versions. Sometimes, you can only really get the good ideas to come out when you're not supposed to be in the studio.

There was one night when we were supposed to be going home since it was late in the evening. I was talking to Iain [Berryman], the engineer, saying, "Please, can we just throw a few things at it? It's not going to be serious. It's just jokes." That's when you can feel confident enough to make things you were once scared of.

From then on, we kind of thought, "OK, this is starting to take on its own identity." We put strings in there. We programmed stuff into it. We'd just been listening to Sufjan Stevens' song ["Mystery of Love"] from Call Me By Your Name , and we were like, "Put those dry, noodly nylon-string guitar things in it!" Basically, just copy what he does.

Now, we get to "Smile." I'm curious how that one came about.

Amey: Early on, when we had a Dropbox of ideas, I had an instrumental with that riff. I brought an acoustic guitar and a fuzz pedal and was kind of mucking around and made it into an instrumental—just noodling and trying to practice my production a little bit.

It kind of hung around for a while. Ellie had these amazing lyrics from another demo called "Smile." It became one of those ones where we crossed them together. Then, we took it into the rehearsal room and [it] became much more of a live band song. It existed as more like an electronic piece before.

How'd you execute "Safe From Heartbreak (if you never fall in love)"?

Rowsell: We were kind of inspired by "Hammond Song" by the Roches. It's a brilliant song. I wanted something that had those kinds of dry, up-front, outsung, stepped vocals. We had the two parts, so it's a male-female part, because, obviously, Joel is a great singer.

We then struggled a little bit to know what music should be going on in the background because this is a vocally driven song. Again, Joff's noodling came to mind. He did it on two guitars—kind of a dueling fingerpicking thing—and it was really hard because it was mechanical. It needed to be precisely played.

Can you talk about "Feeling Myself"?

Rowsell: It came about from a little demo that I had. I didn't really think it was something we'd use. It was just synth-y stuff. The guys really liked it. We worked on it and we kind of fell in love with the middle-eight of it, the music of that and note choices and stuff. It became a favorite moment of ours. I think because of that, we really wanted it on the album. It's a new direction for us that's exciting.

We're almost done with the record. "No Hard Feelings."

Amey: It was something Ellie sent over as an intro to a longer demo. I remember when I first heard it; it sounded like [it had] a Motown-y, girl-group-y kind of vibe to it. Then, it moved onto a different track. We became really fixated with this intro and tried to do a band version of that intro vibe.

We just tried different things, you know? Happy accidents. Joff just felt inspired and came up with this Arthur-Russell-y loop that just kept going and going. He sent the vocals and we were all visibly moved.

Last but not least: "The Beach II."

Rowsell: Yeah, this came from one of Joff's demos that he made on his phone, I think. It had some classic Joff sounds in it: big reverb and distorted guitar noises, electronic drums. We really loved it; it sounded quite old school. We were struggling to find a good melody or lyrics over the top of it.

At the very end, while in the studio, I had another crack at it. It took this song to a different place that had much more of a home on the album. It had all the components of Wolf Alice in one tune: The shoegaze-y stuff, the pop stuff, the electronic stuff, the folky stuff, the rock stuff.

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Photo: Aidan Zamiri

Wallows Talk New Album 'Model,' "Entering Uncharted Territory" With World Tour & That Unexpected Sabrina Carpenter Cover

On the heels of releasing their amped-up third album, 'Model,' alt-rock trio Wallows detail how their "very unabashed" approach has expanded — and landed them in arenas for the first time.

Over the past five years, Dylan Minnette, Cole Preston and Braedan Lemasters — together, known as alternative rock band Wallows — have acutely constructed a sonic landscape of earworm guitar hooks, snappy drums and sing-along lyrics. And their third album, Model , helps lift their career into a new sphere of guitar-driven stardom.

Wallows' growth from the indie-pop breakouts of 2019's Clairo-assisted "Are You Bored Yet?" to full-fledged alt-rock stars is abundantly clear across Model 's 12 tracks. Produced by GRAMMY-winning alt-rock whisperer John Congleton (who also helmed Wallows' 2019 debut album, Nothing Happens ), Model amps up their vintage-meets-contemporary sound. It's an album that sounds perfectly written for arenas — and that's by design.

On The Model World Tour, which kicks off on Aug. 6, the trio will hit arenas and amphitheaters in North America, Europe and the UK, and Australia and New Zealand, including iconic venues like Madison Square Garden, Red Rocks and The Forum. With the tour in mind, they wrote wavy melodies fit for the masses to sing along, like on the racing "Your Apartment" or the howling chorus of "You (Show Me Where My Days Went)."

If the polished sound of Model sounds like the work of a band who has sharpened their talents for decades, that's because it is. Though they made their official introduction as Wallows with the 2018 EP Spring , Minnette, Preston and Lemasters — all in their late 20s — have been performing together since they were just 11 years old.

As Preston asserts, their longtime partnership has resulted in "this kind of synergy happening." It's seemingly helped them become more vulnerable, too, as Model sees the Wallows guys singing overtly about love for the first time, like on lead single "Calling After Me": "I knew the feeling would be forming/ After I took a look into your eyes/ But are you ready for it, darling?"

In celebration of the release of Model , Minnette, Lemasters and Preston mused to GRAMMY.com about their creative journey, why they recently became the unlikely scorn of Sabrina Carpenter fans, and how they're "filling a space" in mainstream alt rock.

You're about to embark on an arena tour, playing venues like Madison Square Garden and The Forum for the very first time. Does this feel like a new phase in your evolution as a band?

Braeden Lemasters: Yeah, I think it does. When we started the band seven years ago, when I look back it's been a very natural progression; it's not like we went straight from 200 capacity clubs to arenas.

We've gone through the stages and right growth, and now we're entering this uncharted territory. We actually haven't even opened up at these venues for anyone, so it'll be our first time playing an arena. We have no idea what to expect.

Model as an album sounds bigger than your past ones, especially songs like "Anytime, Always" which may sonically fit right in at an arena with its sing-along hook. Did you have the arena tour in mind when you were working on Model ?

Cole Preston: Yeah, this record was the first time we did know the tour routing [during the album process]. It didn't necessarily change the way that we worked; we always adapted a similar approach to writing where we naturally want it to be catchy and full, which all lends itself to the live show. But understanding that we're going to have this level of a moment, we'd need to make a record that represents that moment that belongs there.

You guys are an alternative rock three-piece, which is rare in today's musical climate. Does it seem that way to you?

Dylan Minette: Yeah, I definitely feel like there's a space where we're sort of filling [with] the way our music is and sounds. There's other bands that are playing the same rooms and can, but all of us feel pretty different from one another.

Our music is very unabashed, and there's nothing we're trying to subdue or be cool, or worry about it sounding too pop. I'm not saying we're the only ones doing that, because that's obviously not true. But our favorite bands growing up — like Kings of Leon , Arcade Fire or The Killers — weren't afraid to go for it and let the music be larger than life. There used to be a lot more bands that just dominated and went for it, so we try to make sure we're filling that space that isn't really being filled right now.

Were you guys always interested in this genre? I would think for the majority of people from your generation, the inclination would be to do bedroom pop or electronic music, and not to start a band.

Lemasters: The interest for me stems from my dad, who was a guitar player in Ohio local bands. I alway thought it was so normal; I'd be 5 years old and my dad would be playing a stratocaster around the house and listening to the Beatles . He bought me a guitar when I was really young and taught me how to play, so I've had this connection to these classic bands.

When I met Dylan, we bonded over that, because he also liked that music at a young age. I think it was rare for a kid our age to like that kind of music. Cole was also just a very talented musician at a young age too. So we all loved band music at a young age and wanted to form one; there was no other reason than that. We didn't have to search out our passion for it. It was already there.

Speaking of, I've loved your distinctive covers, from "My Worst Enemy" by Lit (which you put a melancholy look at it) to "Espresso" just recently. What's the key to a solid cover and how do you decide what songs to put your spin on it?

Minette: We definitely don't have songs in our pocket. We always try to do something unexpected or unconventional to get people talking about it, otherwise what's the point?

Cole recommended "Espresso," which I hadn't heard at the time — but if he's saying this new, popular song is good, I trust him. When I listened to it, I thought it'd be great, and when we worked on the first version it had a drum machine and was funkier. When we stripped it back and it became more emo, it was hilarious.

Though there are some Sabrina Carpenter fans who are really mad I attempted to sing that song. "You could never be Sabrina!" I'm like, "I know I can never be Sabrina!" But you know what? She texted me recently and gave the seal of approval. That's all we needed.

Since you've all been playing together in some capacity since you were 11, what's kept you together all these years?

Preston: When we were young, our brains were super mushy and we all had a big influence on each other as people. We're all very different now as people in a lot of ways, but we all know each other enough to predict how someone will feel or react about something.

So there's this kind of synergy happening because, since we were 11, we were practicing every day and performing original music, and we just didn't stop. By the time we became Wallows officially, we had been a band for seven or eight years at that point.

Speaking of, I know you recently connected with the person who indirectly inspired your name? What's the story behind that?

Minette: So Wallows was named after a skate spot in Hawaii on Oahu, which we first heard about from the video game Tony Hawk's Underground where it was part of the Hawaii map. Braeden played it growing up and at a certain point he said it'd be a cool album title. Eventually, when we were thinking of band names, we realized Wallows would be a great name.

Last week, we were on "The Today Show" and they said "We have a surprise for you!" And it was a message from Tony Hawk, which was so full circle. To go from being kids with all ambitions and dreams, and now Tony Hawk is surprising us — it was crazy. If our 13-year-old selves were experiencing this, that'd be insane.

Model was produced by John Congleton, who was also behind your first album. What brought you together again for this third record?

Lemasters: When we first started making music, we worked with John; he made some St. Vincent records and we really respected his work. We were just naive enough to be so excited to go with him and we didn't meet anybody else at the time. He did our first EP and first album. There's something really special about that connection and bond you make, that first time.

For our second album, we worked with Ariel Rechtshaid , which was incredible and who we always wanted to work with. When we decided to work on Model , we didn't know who to go with, but we went in with Congleton again to record some demos for no project at all. We asked him what he pictured for us regarding a new album, and everything he said is exactly how we were feeling.

I also always admired an artist working with a producer multiple times, like Nigel Godrich with Radiohead or George Martin with the Beatles; there's a camaraderie where you always know where you've been. So it was a no-brainer to go with John again for Model . I think it's our best work yet, and best production yet, and that's largely because of his passion for the project.

What's the most gratifying part of the musical process as an artist: writing and producing, or going out and performing them on tour?

Lemasters: It's such a hard question, but my answer would be it's whatever process you're currently experiencing. Writing and recording is so exciting, but going on tour and seeing people sing the songs is the most rewarding thing. I know that's the most cop-out answer.

Does it change over time?

Minette: Exactly. It's a cycle, when you're on tour you're thinking, "I can't wait to go back into the studio" by the end for sure. I'm interested to see what happens when time slows down to step away from both and take a step back. I don't think we're near that, but I'm already thinking ahead to the next album, and we haven't even toured this album yet!

Right now, I'm more excited for this tour than ever, but I'm also more nervous. It all adds to the excitement and intrigue of it.

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Photo: Mauricio Santana/Getty Images

Twenty One Pilots' Road To 'Clancy': How The New Album Wraps Up A Decade-Long Lore

Three years after 'Scaled and Icy,' Twenty One Pilots' seventh studio album is here. Dig into the rock duo's journey to 'Clancy,' and how it further showcases their knack for vivid world-building.

Long before Twenty One Pilots developed a cult following, the Columbus, Ohio natives were determined to not be put into a box. From their first EP, 2009's Johnny Boy , they've blended elements of emo, rap, alt-pop, electronica, incorporating hardcore and hip-hop into their shows. "No one knew where to put us," drummer Josh Dun told USA Today in 2014. "But we've approached live shows as a way to build something from nothing."

In the decade since, the band's sheer determination and eclectic onstage personality have made them one of the biggest rock groups of their generation. They're equally as spontaneous and intriguing in their music, building an entire world through dynamic soundscapes and visuals — and their new album, Clancy , ties all of it together.

As the band revealed in a press release upon announcing the album in March, Clancy "marks the final chapter in an ambitious multi-album narrative" that began with Blurryface in 2015. But it certainly doesn't feel like an ending; Clancy further expands on the theatrical style and eclectic sound they've showcased from the start, offering both a resolution and an evolution.

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While the makings of the signature Twenty One Pilots aesthetic began with its original formation as a trio — lead singer Tyler Joseph and his friends Nick Thomas and Chris Salih — it truly took shape when Dun replaced Thomas and Salih in 2011. Dun and Joseph had a common goal to re-formulate the way songs and shows were crafted; the drummer utilized samples and backing tapes at their gigs, helping the band dive deeper into their alternative style by fusing everything from reggae to pop together.

As a newly formed duo, Twenty One Pilots issued their album Regional at Best in 2011 — their last release before they signed to a major label (though, as they told Huffpost in 2013, they since consider the record a "glorified mixtape"). After significant social media buzz and selling out a show at Newport Music Hall in Columbus, the duo was courted by a dozen record labels, which set the stage for their big break.

"We went from no one in the industry caring to all of the sudden it was the hot thing for every label, independent and major, to be interested in some way," Joseph told Columbus Monthly in 2012 upon signing to Fueled by Ramen, which the singer said they were drawn to because they were able to retain "creative control" — a factor that would become increasingly more important with each release.

Their 2013 album Vessel — which featured a combination of new and re-recorded songs from Regional At Best —spawned the band's first charting single, "Holding On to You," a rap-meets-pop track that oscillates from sensitive indie ballad to energetic anthem. Not only had they begun making a mark commercially, but it seemed to be the album that Twenty One Pilots felt they were hitting their stride creatively, too: "I know some people might not like this, but I kind of view Vessel as our first record," Joseph told Kerrang! at the time.

Though the character "Clancy" first came about with 2018's Trench , Twenty One Pilots actually introduced the world that Clancy would eventually live in with 2015's Blurryface , which focused on a titular character who embodies depression and anxiety. "It's a guy who kind of represents all the things that I as an individual, but also everyone around me, are insecure about," Joseph said of his alter-ego in a 2015 interview with MTV .

To convey the "feeling of suffocation" caused by insecurities from what he creates, Joseph began wearing black paint on his neck and hands in music videos and on stage to represent the "Blurryface" character. As Joseph told the Recording Academy in 2015, the "common thread" of all of the songs on Blurryface was that Joseph's alter-ego would be defeated, and each song wrestled with the dichotomy between darkness and optimism.

While Vessel kickstarted the band's commercial success, Blurryface saw their popularity explode and resulted in the band's best-selling single, the eerie rap-rock anthem "Stressed Out." The commercial success of Blurryface helped their hot streak continue into 2016 with the release of "Heathens." While the song served as the first single from the Suicide Squad soundtrack, its haunting production fits right into the world the pair had begun building with Blurryface . Their acclaim continued to grow, with Twenty One Pilots earning their first GRAMMY in 2017 for "Stressed Out" in the Best Pop Duo/Group Performance Category — and, in line with their affinity for stunts, dropping their pants as they accepted their award.

Ahead of the release of their 2018 concept album Trench , the lore surrounding "Clancy" really began. Twenty One Pilots began leaving clues for fans on a website known as DMAORG , which featured black-and-white images and letters from "Clancy," who ultimately became the protagonist of the album. Twenty One Pilots fans (often referred to as the"Skeleton Clique") began clamoring to deduce puzzling clues and posting their theories about the narrative's endgame online.

With Trench , they found more characters and a deeper narrative. The overall album depicts "a world where nine dictatorial bishops keep the inhabitants (Tyler included) of a fictional place named Dema from escaping its controlling clutches, with the help of the Banditos — a rebel organization (featuring Josh)." On a larger scale, the album grapples with mental illness, suicide and an expansion on Joseph's insecurities from Blurryface .

But Trench isn't one cohesive story; rather, it's a series of songs with clues embedded within. For instance, in "Morph," the character Nico is introduced, who is also the subject of "Nico and The Niners." From there, fans gleaned that Nico was one of nine bishops controlling the citizens of Dema, and those nine bishops were represented by each of the songs on Blurryface . The bombastic "Pet Cheetah" references that the house has vultures on the roof which alludes to it — and Joseph's home — being Dema.

As with Blurryface , visuals became an integral part of the album cycle. This time, they used them to illustrate life in the dystopian Dema, which personifies depression through the trilogy of music videos for "Levitate," "Nico and The Niners" and "Jumpsuit." While Joseph's black-painted neck and hands signaled the Blurryface era, dark green clothing marked with yellow tape signaled the Trench era. During this time, the "Clancy" character remained shrouded in mystery — though through videos and letters shared by the band, fans theorized that it is an opposing force to "Blurryface."

By the time Twenty One Pilots' 2021 album, Scaled and Icy , came around, fans quickly noticed that it paid homage to "Clancy" as an anagram for "Clancy is dead," while also acknowledging the COVID-19 pandemic as a shortened phrase for "scaled back and isolated." While Twenty One Pilots could have leaned into the harrowing events of lockdown, they instead chose to focus on what has driven the band itself, the power of imagination — something that has been behind much of the band's work since Blurryface .

With the album came three singles — the propulsive "Shy Away," the heartwrenching banger "Choker" and the funk-pop-tinged "Saturday — which were recorded when the duo was working virtually during the pandemic. Unlike the past two projects which grappled with this doomed slant, Scaled and Icy pivoted toward a sunnier sound, signaling a shift in the narrative. But it didn't mean the dark world of Blurryface and Trench were completely in the past; upon Scaled and Icy 's release, Joseph revealed to Apple Music that there would be "one more record" and "an explanation and book end" before moving onto another story.

Three years following the release of Scaled and Icy , fans began receiving letters from the "Sacred Municipality of Dema" — a reference to the fictional city featured on Trench , signaling what appeared to be a new era diving deeper into the band's lore. Since the previous record featured an anagram about "Clancy" in its title, it seemed natural that the next album would be named after the character.

"'Clancy' is our protagonist in this story we've been telling, stretched out over the last several records. 'Clancy' is the type of character who, for a long time, didn't know if he was a leader or not, didn't want to take that responsibility," Joseph told BBC Radio earlier this year .

As the singer had hinted in the Scaled and Icy era, Clancy brings fans back to the darker narrative that began with Blurryface t. After Joseph's character escapes Dema a handful of times, joins a rebellion, then is captured again, he finally has the same abilities as the bishops and aims to free the people of Dema. The album attempts to answer a few conceptual questions along the way.

Clancy 's blistering first single, "Overcompensate" is inherently hopeful, and answers the long-lingering question fans have been wondering: Who is "Clancy"? According to the psych-funk number, it's been Joseph all along (" If you can't see, I am Clancy/ Prodigal son, done running, come up with Josh Dun .") As Joseph further explained to BBC Radio , "[With] 'Overcompensate', there's a bit of a confidence and swagger in it that the character needed to embody in order to take on the new role in the story we've been telling, and Clancy is gonna rise up as that person."

But much of the album focuses less on the literal lore, instead tackling the overarching themes of its counterparts: Joseph's struggles with mental health. Despite the darker, anxious nature of the album's lyrics, the majority of Clancy has a self-assured breeziness to it, jumping off of the upbeat Scaled and Icy sound.

On the ballad-like closer, "Paladin Strait" — named after a fictional body of water off the coast of Dema —Twenty One Pilots really digs into the narrative of "Clancy" the character in a literal way again. What's revealed is the final battle between "Clancy" and "Blurryface" with no apparent winner — alluding to the idea that there is not necessarily a triumph over depression. In the final line, the band offers a callback to a lyric from Blurryface : "So few, so proud, so emotional/ Hello, Clancy."

While the ending may remain ambiguous, it may not be a coincidence that Twenty One Pilots postponed Clancy 's release date by a week (from May 17 to May 24) in order to finish filming music videos for each of the tracks, all of which were unveiled upon the album's release. So, there's still hope that fans will find out definitively what happened to "Clancy" — or maybe it means his story isn't completely finished.

Photo of Lenny Kravitz wearing dark black sunglasses and a black leather jacket.

Photo: Mark Seliger

Feel Lenny Kravitz's 'Blue Electric Light': How The GRAMMY-Winning Rocker Channeled His Teen Years For His New Album

'Blue Electric Light' is a laser beam through Lenny Kravtiz's musical ethos: a rocking, impassioned and defiantly Lenny production. The Global Impact Award honoree discusses his first album in six years, and the flowers he's received along the way.

Lenny Kravitz is a vessel — a divining rod of creative direction.

"I just do what I'm told. I'm just an antenna. So what I hear and what I receive, I do," he tells GRAMMY.com. It's with that extra-sensory, spiritual guidance that Kravitz created his latest album, Blue Electric Light . "I just saw and felt this blue light — electric blue, almost neon light —radiating down on me."

Out May 24, Blue Electric Light is Kravtiz's first LP in six years and fittingly flits through the rocker's cosmology: Arena-ready booty shakers like "TK421" (the music video for which features the nearly 60-year-old unabashedly shaking his own booty), Zeppelin and Pearl Jam -inspired rockers like "Paralyzed," and shared humanity-focused groovers like "Human." There's plenty of '80s R&B sensibility throughout, giving Blue Electric Light a perfectly timed, timeless feeling.

It's as if Kravitz took a tour through his own discography, landing right back where he started: In high school. In fact, two of the album's tracks — "Bundle of Joy" and "Heaven" — were written when the four-time GRAMMY winner was still a teenager. While Kravitz's latest may lean into the sounds of his young adulthood, the album's underlying themes remain consistently spiritual, intimate and emotional. "My main message is what it has always been, and that is love," Kravitz told GRAMMY.com in 2018 . And by staying true to himself and this message of love, Lenny Kravitz is thriving .

"I've never felt better mentally, spiritually, and physically. I've never felt more vibrant," he says today.

Kravtiz has also had a big year. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and, during 2024 GRAMMY week, was honored with the Global Impact Award at Black Music Collective’s Recording Academy Honors. At the ceremony, Kravtiz was lauded for his work with his Let Love Rule foundation, and his iconic discography celebrated in a performance by Quavo , George Clinton , Earth, Wind & Fire bassist Verdine White, and Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith.

Reflecting on his achievements, Kravitz remains humble. "Success is wonderful, but I only want success by being me and doing what it is that I'm hearing, as opposed to following something or a formula."

Ahead of releasing Blue Electric Light into the world — just a few days shy of his 60th birthday on May 26— Lenny Kravitz spoke with GRAMMY.com about revisiting his past, following his gut, and stopping to smell the flowers.

You haven't released a record in about six years. Why did you feel now was the time to put new music out, and what was inspiring you?

Well, it was just by virtue of what was going on. So I released [2018's Raise Vibration and], I toured for two years. Then COVID hits two and a half years [later]. It wasn't like I went away or wasn't inspired. I had a whole other year planned. I was going to tour for three years on that last album.

But [when] COVID happened, the world shut down and I got stuck in the Bahamas for a couple of years and a half. And so during that time I was just being creative. I [wrote the whole album] during that time and a little bit afterwards; [I wrote] just maybe two songs afterwards.

When I finished, then I had to figure out when I wanted to put it out and how. I did the Baynard Rustin song ["Road to Freedom" from the Academy Award-nominated film Rustin ], and then I ended up pushing my album so I could fully promote the film and the legacy of Bayard Rustin.

Anyway, here we are. Everything happens in the time that it should, and I'm looking forward to putting this out and getting back on the road.

I read that this record was like an album that you didn't make in high school and it has this very young spirit. What took you to that place?

At the beginning of the pandemic, I released a book called Let Love Rule , and it ended up on th e New York Times bestseller list. It was about my life from birth to the first album [1989's Let Love Rule ], so around 24 years old. In this book, I spent a lot of time in my teenage years when I was developing. That came out at the beginning of the pandemic and I was doing a lot of press for it.

And I think because I was exploring that time so much when I was writing the book and then talking about that time so much when I was promoting the book, it just came out. And it was a time in my life that I never really celebrated. I never put music out at that time.

When I found my sound [on] Let Love Rule, all that material I was working on at that time got buried before. And so I just went to that place. I didn't plan on it, it just happened. In fact, two songs on the record ["Bundle of Joy" and "Heaven"] are from high school.

So it's a blend of where I am now and where I was then. And it's a really fun record and I had a really beautiful time making it. It's a celebration, and it's sensual and sexual and spiritual and social and it hits all the marks. I'm looking forward to getting out there.

You were obviously deep in your memories, and it sounds like you were probably listening to a lot of Prince in high school.

There's a lot of things. There's a blend of '80s technology and drum machines, and real instruments and synthesizers that I pulled out from then. During that time, yeah, I was listening to a lot of Bowie . I was listening to a lot of Prince , a lot of Rick James , a lot of just soul and R&B in general, and rock.

Are there any songs on the record that you are particularly proud of or that are really meaningful to you?

All of them. I hear it all as one piece. So it's just one flow of consciousness, but I'm really proud of the record.

One of my favorite tracks would be the opening track, "It's Just Another Fine Day in this Universe." I just think it's such a vibe and I love the way the chorus makes me feel. I think "Stuck in the Middle" is really pretty and sensual.

Speaking of vibes, when I'm listening to the record, it feels very hopeful. Is that generally how you've been feeling or how you go through the world these days?

I'm pretty optimistic. But now even more than ever, just on a personal level, I've never felt better mentally, spiritually, and physically. I've never felt more vibrant and I'm becoming more comfortable within myself in my skin and in my place.

I've learned that listening to that voice inside of me and sticking to what it is that was meant for me, my direction, has paid off and it feels good.

What do you attribute that growth and that deep comfort to, both personally and creatively?

Just [having] time to see the results. I'm blessed to live, to see the results of being faithful to what it is you've been given and told to do by the creative spirit, by God. People have always been trying to push me in different directions: "Do this, do that, follow this, go this way. This is what's happening right now." Follow the trends because they're looking at it as a business and they're trying to make money and have success.

Yes, success is wonderful, but I only want success by being me and doing what it is that I'm hearing, as opposed to following a formula that one thinks would work. Because once you follow that, you're already late, it's already happened. And I am not about being late.

I don't mind setting the tone or the trend and being early and not getting recognized for it at the time. Because I'm not doing it for the reason of receiving accolades or whatever. I'm doing it to be expressive and to truthfully represent myself.

I think that's a fantastic way to be. People come around eventually, right?

Yes. I've been reading reviews of my heroes back in the day, and I remember seeing Led Zeppelin reviews just ripping them to shreds. Led Zeppelin [are] praised [for] being classic and genius, but at one time they were s—, somebody said. So if you live long enough and you keep doing what you're doing, if you're doing the right thing and what you're supposed to be doing, you'll see that shift in people's opinions.

Not that that matters, but when you see it, it feels good because you know that you did it the way you were supposed to do it.

I hear a little bit of that defiance on this record too, that and the centering of your own truth — on "Human." Can you maybe tell me a little bit about that track and how it came to you?

Well, it just came like they all come. So I hear it and I think to myself, Okay, that's interesting . That has this real pop anthem, very uplifting feeling. [The song] speaks to us as spiritual beings having this human existence on this planet.

We are at our most powerful when we are authentic to ourselves. When you're authentic to who you are, you're shining and you represent what it is that you're meant to represent. And so the song just speaks on that, and really using this human existence to learn and to walk in your lane to reach your destiny.

In life since we've been born, we've been told what to do and how to do it: "Don't go this direction, go that way," and "No, don't do this, do that because this is the way it's done" or "This is what's safe." And we're all born with a gift; we're all born with a direction. And we don't all hit the marks because sometimes we don't accept what our gift is. Or we're too busy looking at others and what their gift is and we want what they have, and we leave behind what we were given. We go chase something that is not for us; it's that other person's calling.

So the more we shed all of that and really just walk in our lane, the better. And I am enjoying this journey of humanness and learning and growing, falling, getting up, climbing up the mountain, falling again, getting back up, continuing up. That's what it's about. It's not about how many times you fall... It's about how you get up and keep going. We're all here to live and learn and, hopefully, love.

I'm curious if the title of the record translates to this idea at all. Does Blue Electric Light manifest in any real way to you as a spiritual guide?

To me, it's a feeling. I just saw and felt this blue light — electric blue, almost neon light —radiating down on me, and that light is life . It's God, it's love, it's humanity, it's energy. And just metaphorically, that's what that represents to me.

Right on. To take it away a little bit from the existential and the spiritual, you just received the Global Impact Award at the 2024 GRAMMYs. You said you're not doing these things for accolades, but I'm curious how it felt to be recognized for this aspect of your work — something that isn't inherently musical that's a little more outside yourself.

Where I am in life right now is, if someone's going to hand you flowers, then stop, smell them and enjoy them. And that's what I'm doing.

I make my art because I make my art and for no other reason, but when handed these flowers, I'm appreciative. I'm grateful, and I will enjoy them because I spent my whole career not doing that. I was always moving so fast and [was] not only concerned with the art and moving forward, that I didn't enjoy those moments when you get awards or things. So I made a promise to myself years ago, moving forward when the flowers are delivered, that I will stop and smell them, take a moment, breathe, and then move forward.

And that's what I'm doing, because every day of life is beautiful. And when you can celebrate, why not celebrate?

Amen to that. It's that presence of mind and spirit that you have been talking about this whole time and seems to have flowed through your artwork as well. With regard to the work with your Let Love Rule foundation , are there any projects that you would love to tackle next?

There's so many. From some things I've been doing with friends, like building certain foundations in Africa with someone that's on the ground there, doing it firsthand with orphanages in schools, to the medical situation in the Bahamas, to continue providing medical and dental care for free to the people so they can have their basic health issues taken care of.

And then also working with kids in the arts and helping to give them a foundation to work from. These are things that I'm interested in.

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Slash's New Blues Ball: How His Collaborations Album 'Orgy Of The Damned' Came Together

On his new album, 'Orgy Of The Damned,' Slash recruits several friends — from Aerosmith's Steven Tyler to Demi Lovato — to jam on blues classics. The rock legend details how the project was "an accumulation of stuff I've learned over the years."

In the pantheon of rock guitar gods, Slash ranks high on the list of legends. Many fans have passionately discussed his work — but if you ask him how he views his evolution over the last four decades, he doesn't offer a detailed analysis.

"As a person, I live very much in the moment, not too far in the past and not very far in the future either," Slash asserts. "So it's hard for me to really look at everything I'm doing in the bigger scheme of things."

While his latest endeavor — his new studio album, Orgy Of The Damned — may seem different to many who know him as the shredding guitarist in Guns N' Roses , Slash's Snakepit, Velvet Revolver , and his four albums with Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators, it's a prime example of his living-in-the-moment ethos. And, perhaps most importantly to Slash, it goes back to what has always been at the heart of his playing: the blues.

Orgy Of The Damned strips back much of the heavier side of his playing for a 12-track homage to the songs and artists that have long inspired him. And he recruited several of his rock cohorts — the likes of AC/DC 's Brian Johnson , Aerosmith 's Steven Tyler , Gary Clark Jr. , Iggy Pop , Beth Hart , and Dorothy, among others — to jam on vintage blues tunes with him, from "Hoochie Coochie Man" to "Born Under A Bad Sign."

But don't be skeptical of his current venture — there's plenty of fire in these interpretations; they just have a different energy than his harder rocking material. The album also includes one new Slash original, the majestic instrumental "Metal Chestnut," a nice showcase for his tastefully melodic and expressive playing.

The initial seed for the project was planted with the guitarist's late '90s group Slash's Blues Ball, which jammed on genre classics. Those live, spontaneous collaborations appealed to him, so when he had a small open window to get something done recently, he jumped at the chance to finally make a full-on blues album.

Released May 17, Orgy Of The Damned serves as an authentic bridge from his musical roots to his many hard rock endeavors. It also sees a full-circle moment: two Blues Ball bandmates, bassist Johnny Griparic and keyboardist Teddy Andreadis, helped lay down the basic tracks. Further seizing on his blues exploration, Slash will be headlining his own touring blues festival called S.E.R.P.E.N.T. in July and August, with support acts including the Warren Haynes Band , Keb' Mo' , ZZ Ward, and Eric Gales .

Part of what has kept Slash's career so intriguing is the diversity he embraces. While many heavy rockers stay in their lane, Slash has always traveled down other roads. And though most of his Orgy Of The Damned guests are more in his world, he's collaborated with the likes of Michael Jackson , Carole King and Ray Charles — further proof that he's one of rock's genre-bending greats.

Below, Slash discusses some of the most memorable collabs from Orgy Of The Damned , as well as from his wide-spanning career.

I was just listening to "Living For The City," which is my favorite track on the album.

Wow, that's awesome. That was the track that I knew was going to be the most left of center for the average person, but that was my favorite song when [ Stevie Wonder 's 1973 album] Innervisions came out when I was, like, 9 years old. I loved that song. This record's origins go back to a blues band that I put together back in the '90s.

Slash's Blues Ball.

Right. We used to play "Superstition," that Stevie Wonder song. I did not want to record that [for Orgy Of The Damned ], but I still wanted to do a Stevie Wonder song. So it gave me the opportunity to do "Living For The City," which is probably the most complicated of all the songs to learn. I thought we did a pretty good job, and Tash [Neal] sang it great. I'm glad you dig it because you're probably the first person that's actually singled that song out.

With the Blues Ball, you performed Hoyt Axton's "The Pusher" and Robert Johnson 's "Crossroads," and they surface here. Isn't it amazing it took this long to record a collection like this?

[Blues Ball] was a fun thrown-together thing that we did when I [was in, I] guess you call it, a transitional period. I'd left Guns N' Roses [in 1996], and it was right before I put together a second incarnation of Snakepit.

I'd been doing a lot of jamming with a lot of blues guys. I'd known Teddy [Andreadis] for a while and been jamming with him at The Baked Potato for years prior to this. So during this period, I got together with Ted and Johnny [Griparic], and we started with this Blues Ball thing. We started touring around the country with it, and then even made it to Europe. It was just fun.

Then Snakepit happened, and then Velvet Revolver. These were more or less serious bands that I was involved in. Blues Ball was really just for the fun of it, so it didn't really take precedence. But all these years later, I was on tour with Guns N' Roses, and we had a three-week break or whatever it was. I thought, I want to make that f—ing record now .

It had been stewing in the back of my mind subconsciously. So I called Teddy and Johnny, and I said, Hey, let's go in the studio and just put together a set and go and record it. We got an old set list from 1998, picked some songs from an app, picked some other songs that I've always wanted to do that I haven't gotten a chance to do.

Then I had the idea of getting Tash Neal involved, because this guy is just an amazing singer/guitar player that I had worked with in a blues thing a couple years prior to that. So we had the nucleus of this band.

Then I thought, Let's bring in a bunch of guest singers to do this. I don't want to try to do a traditional blues record, because I think that's going to just sound corny. So I definitely wanted this to be more eclectic than that, and more of, like, Slash's take on these certain songs, as opposed to it being, like, "blues." It was very off-the-cuff and very loose.

It's refreshing to hear Brian Johnson singing in his lower register on "Killing Floor" like he did in the '70s with Geordie, before he got into AC/DC. Were you expecting him to sound like that?

You know, I didn't know what he was gonna sing it like. He was so enthusiastic about doing a Howlin' Wolf cover.

I think he was one of the first calls that I made, and it was really encouraging the way that he reacted to the idea of the song. So I went to a studio in Florida. We'd already recorded all the music, and he just fell into it in that register.

I think he was more or less trying to keep it in the same feel and in the same sort of tone as the original, which was great. I always say this — because it happened for like two seconds, he sang a bit in the upper register — but it definitely sounded like AC/DC doing a cover of Howlin' Wolf. We're not AC/DC, but he felt more comfortable doing it in the register that Howlin' Wolf did. I just thought it sounded really great.

You chose to have Demi Lovato sing "Papa Was A Rolling Stone." Why did you pick her?

We used to do "Papa Was A Rolling Stone" back in Snakepit, actually, and Johnny played bass. We had this guy named Rod Jackson, who was the singer, and he was incredible. He did a great f—ing interpretation of the Temptations singing it.

When it came to doing it for this record, I wanted to have something different, and the idea of having a young girl's voice telling the story of talking to her mom to find out about her infamous late father, just made sense to me. And Demi was the first person that I thought of. She's got such a great, soulful voice, but it's also got a certain kind of youth to it.

When I told her about it, she reacted like Brian did: "Wow, I would love to do that . " There's some deeper meaning about the song to her and her personal life or her experience. We went to the studio, and she just belted it out. It was a lot of fun to do it with her, with that kind of zeal.

You collaborate with Chris Stapleton on Fleetwood Mac 's "Oh Well" by Peter Green. I'm assuming the original version of that song inspired "Double Talkin' Jive" by GN'R?

It did not, but now that you mention it, because of the classical interlude thing at the end... Is that what you're talking about? I never thought about it.

I mean the overall vibe of the song.

"Oh Well" was a song that I didn't hear until I was about 12 years old. It was on KMET, a local radio station in LA. I didn't even know there was a Fleetwood Mac before Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham . I always loved that song, and I think it probably had a big influence on me without me even really realizing it. So no, it didn't have a direct influence on "Double Talkin' Jive," but I get it now that you bring it up.

Was there something new that you learned in making this album? Were your collaborators surprised by their own performances?

I think Gary Clark is just this really f—ing wonderful guitar player. When I got "Crossroads," the idea originally was "Crossroads Blues," which is the original Robert Johnson version. And I called Gary and said, "Would you want to play with me on this thing?"

He and I only just met, so I didn't know what his response was going to be. But apparently, he was a big Guns N' Roses fan — I get the idea, anyway. We changed it to the Cream version just because I needed to have something that was a little bit more upbeat. So when we got together and played, we solo-ed it off each other.

When I listen back to it, his playing is just so f—ing smooth, natural, and tasty. There was a lot of that going on throughout the making of the whole record — acclimating to the song and to the feel of it, just in the moment.

I think that's all an accumulation of stuff that I've learned over the years. The record probably would be way different if I did it 20 years ago, so I don't know what that evolution is. But it does exist. The growth thing — God help us if you don't have it.

You've collaborated with a lot of people over the years — Michael Jackson, Carole King, Lemmy , B.B. King, Fergie . Were there any particular moments that were daunting or really challenging? And was there any collaboration that produced something you didn't expect?

All those are a great example of the growth thing, because that's how you really grow as a musician. Learning how to adapt to playing with other people, and playing with people who are better than you — that really helps you blossom as a player.

Playing with Carole King [in 1993] was a really educational experience because she taught me a lot about something that I thought that I did naturally, but she helped me to fine tune it, which was soloing within the context of the song. [It was] really just a couple of words that she said to me during this take that stuck with me. I can't remember exactly what they were, but it was something having to do with making room for the vocal. It was really in passing, but it was important knowledge.

The session that really was the hardest one that I ever did was [when] I was working with Ray Charles before he passed away. I played on his "God Bless America [Again]" record [on 2002's Ray Charles Sings for America ], just doing my thing. It was no big deal. But he asked me to play some standards for the biopic on him [2004's Ray ], and he thought that I could just sit in with his band playing all these Ray Charles standards.

That was something that they gave me the chord charts for, and it was over my head. It was all these chord changes. I wasn't familiar with the music, and most of it was either a jazz or bebop kind of a thing, and it wasn't my natural feel.

I remember taking the chord charts home, those kinds you get in a f—ing songbook. They're all kinds of versions of chords that wouldn't be the version that you would play.

That was one of those really tough sessions that I really learned when I got in over my head with something. But a lot of the other ones I fall into more naturally because I have a feel for it.

That's how those marriages happen in the first place — you have this common interest of a song, so you just feel comfortable doing it because it's in your wheelhouse, even though it's a different kind of music than what everybody's familiar with you doing. You find that you can play and be yourself in a lot of different styles. Some are a little bit challenging, but it's fun.

Are there any people you'd like to collaborate with? Or any styles of music you'd like to explore?

When you say styles, I don't really have a wish list for that. Things just happen. I was just working with this composer, Bear McCreary . We did a song on this epic record that's basically a soundtrack for this whole graphic novel thing, and the compositions are very intense. He's very particular about feel, and about the way each one of these parts has to be played, and so on. That was a little bit challenging. We're going to go do it live at some point coming up.

There's people that I would love to play with, but it's really not like that. It's just whatever opportunities present themselves. It's not like there's a lot of forethought as to who you get to play with, or seeking people out. Except for when you're doing a record where you have people come in and sing on your record, and you have to call them up and beg and plead — "Will you come and do this?"

But I always say Stevie Wonder. I think everybody would like to play with Stevie Wonder at some point.

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Wolf Alice: ‘We’re actually looking into playing weddings’

By Tim Jonze

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When Wolf Alice started work on their third album, Blue Weekend , lead singer Ellie Rowsell realised she had a problem. Maybe it was the pressure of following up 2017’s Visions Of A Life , which had won the 2018 Mercury Prize, a feat no guitar band had achieved for six years. Or maybe it was the fact a relentless touring schedule had left her out of practice with making new music. But the songs she’d written and was about to share with her three band members, well, they just weren’t very good... were they?

“There was a bit of pressure,” Rowsell recalls. “They weren’t fully formed at that stage, so when you show them to people you just hope they can see a song in the shit demo.”

It’s fair to say they could. Blue Weekend was released in June to a bombardment of five-star reviews and lavish praise for the way it deftly intertwined its intimate lyrics with a widescreen indie-rock sound. It became the band’s first No1 album in the UK and earned them a third Mercury Prize nomination, all of which made crowning them as GQ ’s band of the year a somewhat easy task. As for the songs being no good? Perhaps such worries were to be expected from a band who have always swerved rock star swagger for an endearing combination of self-doubt and social awkwardness, documenting instead the inner turmoil of growing up through your teens and twenties. Rowsell, after all, is a singer who once found it difficult to shout along to her own songs while recording early demos. “I remember saying, ‘But it’s just not me!’” she says today, making use of a comedic squeaky voice.

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Wolf Alice won their first Mercury Prize for sophomore album Visions Of A Life, 20 September 2018

But Blue Weekend is the work of a band who have located their deep inner reserves of confidence. Ethereal and expansive, it breezes through folk, punk and indie stylings with a touch of the Cocteau Twins and Kate Bush for good measure. It sounds perfectly engineered for festival headline slots – although, when we meet, the pandemic has prevented the band playing a single festival. Instead their current live show is confined to a windowless rehearsal space in East London, where the band are beating their back catalogue into shape for a headline set at Latitude. The room is dotted with signs of their recent success: a glossy magazine with them gracing the cover lies on the sofa (“Oh, how did that get there?” says guitarist Joff Oddie with a touch of embarrassment), while a gigantic -bottle of WKD Blue lurks in the corner (“That says it all... We’re fucking big time !” says a grinning Theo Ellis). But in person Wolf Alice don’t act like the megastars they’re becoming: they’re low-key, self--deprecating, slightly tentative at times. Even “Delicious Things”, Blue Weekend ’s tale of popping pills in Los Angeles, is delivered with a sense of hesitancy: “The vibes are kinda wrong here / Scared to know just what goes on here,” sings Rowsell, who won’t be breaking any of Happy Mondays’ hedonism records any time soon.

Yet if they share a certain unstarriness, they’re remarkably different as people – four musicians you might not place in the same band. Oddie is the designated grown-up (-carries the keys to the studio, dresses sensibly, volunteered at a food bank during time off), while Ellis is the band’s joker, louder than the others both in volume and style (bleached-blond hair; a Justin and Britney T-shirt). Drummer Joel Amey is the band’s biggest musical obsessive and also the quietest. And then there’s the paradox that is Rowsell – shy yet steely, serious but with a dry sense of humour. She’s as likely to play live in a gothic ankle-length dress as grungy boots and jeans – today she’s in the latter, tugging at the denim while answering questions.

This album marks a turning point for the 29-year-old singer, in that she’s allowed herself to open up lyrically and share more. There are lyrics about answering her critics (and fiercely: “Don’t call me mad / There’s a difference, I’m angry” is one choice line from “Smile”), but also crying in the bath to Amy Winehouse records (the stunning Fleetwood Mac-esque “No Hard Feelings”). The latter reference is a pointed one. “[Winehouse] was always unashamed about writing so many love songs, whereas I always used to feel, ‘Oh, God, not another one,’” says Rowsell. “But if I go through something -personal, whether it’s good or a tragedy or whatever, I often become obsessed with music, art, literature about that thing. So if it’s a break-up I just wanna watch films about break-ups. It’s trying to make sense of something.”

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Jacket by Givenchy, £2,190. givenchy.com . Tights by Falke, £20. falke.com . Necklace, £33,400. Ring, £10,500. Both by Bulgari. bulgari.com

Perhaps Blue Weekend ’s most striking track is “Feeling Myself”, which critics bashfully described as “an ode to self-love”. Perhaps that’s because they’re not used to a woman writing openly about masturbation as an alternative to disappointing sex (“He’s had so many lovers / Don’t mean he’s been pleasing anyone”). “I didn’t mean it to be scathing of men,” says Rowsell, “but perhaps it is being scathing of how, as a woman, you grow up to not understand sex. Because no one really talks about it. Nobody at school goes there.”

That the London four-piece have become comfortable enough with each other to explore such themes is an unlikely triumph. Rowsell grew up in Archway, London, without friends who shared her various musical obsessions. To find someone like-minded she scoured internet forums with her father, looking at sites where musicians demonstrated their chops to potential bandmates. In 2010, they landed on Oddie, who was at teacher-training college in South West London at the time. The duo’s initial acoustic leanings grew into something heavier when Ellis and Amey joined. But as befits a band who formed without any shared history, their music bounced around genres, making them hard to pigeonhole. Were they grunge, Britpop revivalists, indie shoegazers or something else? The A&Rs they met in those early days often had the same question, with some telling them they had to focus on a particular sound. “You need to decide if you want to be Patti Smith or Florence Welch,” was one depressing response. Did they ever think they might have to pick?

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“Not collectively. Like, ‘Guys, I think we should be a punk band,’” says Rowsell. “But, in your head, of course you do think about it.”

“There was that feeling of ‘What am I?’” says Ellis. “But you do that in your life too. It’s easier if you define yourselves within certain parameters, because then you know how to fit in with the world, but one of the beautiful things about watching this generation that is 16 generations below me – or, at least, it feels like that – is that they cross-pollinate with all these ideas and the onus is on being an individual. I’m jealous of that.”

It was far from the only time Wolf Alice have struggled to convince the music industry of their worth. “One A&R man was like, ‘You don’t look like a band. You need a thing, like The Horrors have their thing,’” says Rowsell.

“We weren’t all wearing black and we didn’t all share the same drug addiction,” says Ellis.

It’s funny now, but it must have been demoralising at the time. “It was really horrible!” says Rowsell. “Because, on one hand, those things make you stronger. Like, ‘I’ll prove to you that I don’t need this “thing”.’ But, on the other hand, you still go home and start thinking, ‘What can my “thing” be?’”

Yet not being like a “typical band” , it turned out, was exactly what young indie fans were looking for at a time when guitar music had been declared dead by most critics. “It was that period when rock star culture was going through a transition,” says Ellis. “That option of being wayward and cool and trendy suddenly started to look... very not cool. There was a lot that wouldn’t go down well in the current climate.”

Earlier this year Rowsell found herself caught in a story that captures these rapidly changing attitudes around “rock star” behaviour: after Marilyn Manson had been accused of abuse, grooming and manipulation by several women, she decided to step forward with her own story. She had been backstage at a festival when Manson approached her, singing the band’s praises. But, as his words became more and more effusive, she noticed he’d been recording upskirt footage of her on a GoPro (astonishingly, this seems to have been completely legal at the time). In a series of tweets, Rowsell wrote, “There were no repercussions for his behaviour. His tour manager simply said, ‘He does this kind of thing all the time...’ When will we stop enabling misogynists on the account of their success?” (Manson and his tour manager have yet to respond.)

What made her decide to speak out? “For me, personally, if you feel like you have something to add that could be in any way beneficial then it might be worth it,” she says. “But I don’t treat those things casually.” Is this type of behaviour a common experience for women in bands? “There’s no one woman who has a collective experience, so I don’t know. What I will say is a lot of my experiences, in a similar vein to that one, happened before I was ever in the music industry.”

“Society needs a reckoning, not just the music industry,” adds Oddie. “The music industry is just reflective of what’s going on in wider society.”

It’s not the only time Wolf Alice have made a statement. In 2019 they called for a boycott of Eurovision in Tel Aviv, accusing Israel of “weaponising culture” and of being “serial human rights abusers”. This band once afraid of shouting their own lyrics have certainly found their voice.

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Jacket by Gucci, £2,200. gucci.com . T-shirt by Boss, £39. boss.com . Necklaces, from £80 each. Bracelet (bottom), £180. All by Tilly Sveaas. tillysveaas.co.uk . Rings by Pawnshop, from £115 each. pawnlondon.com . Bracelet (top), Theo’s own

Now it’s a question of being able to share it again with their fans. Normally when writing material they road test it with smaller shows – that way they work out which songs work and where the peaks and troughs of a set are. This time they’ve been locked indoors. The pandemic struck while they were recording the album in Belgium, something they think might have helped them accentuate the finer sonic details. “Other than nipping out for a walk or run, there was no way to escape the record,” says Oddie with a grin.

But while the record itself didn’t suffer, the band have thought about how to maintain that close relationship with their fans.

“There’s people you start to miss,” says Ellis. “When they come to shows all the time you get to know them, in a way, and see them grow up.” The other day he bumped into a longtime fan who is now the singer in her own band, Lemondaze, and he beams with a sense of paternal pride.

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Jacket, £545. Rollneck, £149. Trousers, £209. Shoes, £189. All by Boss. boss.com . Watch, Joff’s own

“That’s one of my favourite aspects of this whole thing,” says Oddie. “Seeing friendship groups that have formed because of us.”

“There’s a group of kids who keep tweeting me from Battersea Park,” says Ellis. “They keep getting smashed and listening to Blue Weekend in the park. I might go down and see them one day.”

They’re hoping to reconnect properly if scheduled US, UK and EU tours go ahead, but, even as one of the biggest bands in Britain, everything remains in flux, with changing coronavirus restrictions and the avalanche of paperwork involved post-Brexit. “It will put a chokehold on bands at a lower level than us, who have to pay triple the costs to tour,” says Ellis. “Normally we’d be giddy with excitement right now, caning it at festivals and European shows, but we’re going to have to put our heads together to figure out how to do it.”

“We’re actually looking into playing weddings,” says Rowsell.

“Yeah,” echoes Ellis. “If anyone’s got a wedding, shout us!”

Why weddings?

“Free booze,” says Rowsell. “Plus, they seem to be allowed even though shows aren’t.”

“If we can’t tour Europe then they’re the next best thing,” decides Amey.

Regardless of how many shows they play, Blue Weekend has already propelled Wolf Alice into a bigger league. It must have been strange for this modest group to see the rave reviews pouring in?

“It’s been mad,” admits Amey.

“And a shock, for me,” adds Oddie. “Because when you spend four years writing 40 minutes of music, you do lose all sense of perspective on how good that 40 minutes is. There was a point when we finished it when I was like, ‘I have no idea about this. It might be rubbish.’ And I thought that for quite a long time.”

Crippling self-doubt again? With Wolf Alice, that’s how you know you’re on to a winner.

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about the artist

Wolf Alice are Ellie Rowsell (vocals, guitar), Joff Oddie (guitar, vocals), Joel Amey (drums) and Theo Ellis (bass). Since forming, the band have seen their 2015 gold-selling debut album My Love Is Cool soar to #2 on the UK charts, their sophomore album Visions Of A Life win the 2018 Hyundai Mercury Prize, and have picked up a GRAMMY nomination for Best Rock Performance. For their Visions Of A Life world tour, the band played a massive 187 shows — including a sold out Alexandra Palace, London and 2 sold out dates at Brixton Academy London. The band…

• • •

"You can join us if you think you're wild," Ellie Rowsell sang on "Freazy." "You can join us if you're a feral child."

Many like minds answered the call. Since Wolf Alice's debut album My Love Is Cool was released back in 2015, they received a Grammy nomination for Best Rock Performance for their Top 10 Alternative single "Moaning Lisa Smile," were named one of Rolling Stone 's 10 New Artists You Need To Know, had several headline tours and performed at major festivals including Coachella and Lollapalooza. That is on top of all of their achievements in their home base of the UK, which include a debut at No. 2 in the UK charts, nominations for the prestigious Mercury Prize and a Brit Award, winning the NME Award for Best Live Band and a campaign that culminated in a Gold certified album. Add to that the mother of all global tours, which saw them crisscross the UK, the US, Australia, Japan and Europe, their song "Silk" appearing on the Trainspotting sequel T2, and being selected to be the musical heart of 24 Hour Party People director Michael Winterbottom's fictionalized documentary On The Road that premiered at the 2017 SXSW film festival, and that adds up to the sort of success that many young bands must wait years to achieve.

"The past two years were such amazing highs and then really extreme lows that you've never encountered before," says Ellie. "That's this album." It's such disorientating details, miniature epiphanies and tiny apocalypses from an extreme ride and the lull that came after, that make up Wolf Alice's second record, Visions Of A Life .

It's the classic story. You slog your ass off to make your debut, you tour like a demon, you hit the heights, you get no sleep. Then, when you finally come off the road, you come home to an empty house. "There's some extremely concentrated emotional fluctuation," says bassist Theo Ellis.

Instead of floundering or foundering, Wolf Alice channeled their restless energy into a forward motion. "On the first record maybe we were trying to hold back certain aspects, stylistic things," says guitarist Joff Oddie. "With this one, we thought 'we can do what we want.'"

Regrouping in London, they spent intense weeks in the rehearsal room, working out their experiences in a wealth of new material. When it came time to pick someone to help hone it down, a coincidental name popped up. Justin Meldal-Johnsen, who has played with the likes of Tori Amos, Nine Inch Nails and Beck, had also worked on Tegan and Sara's Heartthrob , M83's Hurry Up We're Dreaming , and Paramore's After Laughter . Ellie, however, recognized his name from the Raveonettes Pe'Ahi , the only album she'd ever looked up to see who produced it. The rest of the band remembered seeing him play with Beck at Electric Picnic. "We all watched that show and went 'That's one of the best shows we've ever seen, and that bassist is fucking mad and cool,'" says Theo. "And then somehow we ended up making a record with him, which is a nice bit of the world working its magic."

Visions Of A Life is packed with surprises for those who think they know what Wolf Alice's shtick is. A gauntlet is hurled by the exhilarating rage-rush "Yuk Foo," the first track released from the sophomore album. "You bore me, you bore me to death," screams Ellie. "Deplore me? No I don't give a shit." Who is the "you" being addressed — or perhaps more appropriately, being dressed down — though?

"We wanted to make it open to interpretation, so that anyone who was frustrated at something could have it as their anthem," says Ellie. She herself was inspired by "being sick and fed up of certain expectations… for me a lot of it is about being a young woman. Even the shit, everyday wolf-whistle thing. As I get older, I feel like 'Why have I always put up with that?' When I sing that kind of song, it's everything that I want to do when that happens."

It's a good time, of course, for anthems of anger. "I think almost everyone feels frustrated right now, don't they?" says Ellie. "And petrified as well," adds Theo. "I read the news this morning and I was physically scared."

The band themselves have been doing their bit to do something positive with that frustration and fear. Ellie and Theo set up the Bands For Refugees movement, after the horrors of Europe's migrant crisis and the lack of compassion shown in many quarters shocked them into action. In the run up to the UK election, the band used their social media to urge young people to make their voice heard. "It's just growing up and realizing the potential of what you can do with the platform you've been given," says Joff. "I think you have to do everything you can to stay hopeful," says Ellie. "Nothing gets better if you're hopeless."

Though political turmoil seeped into the emotional extremes of Visions Of A Life , it's fundamentally a personal album, and one of great growth for Wolf Alice.

Helping them through these emotional and sonic leaps was Meldal-Johnsen. Recording at engineer Carlos De La Garza's Music Friends studio in Eagle Rock, California, he created a safe, collaborative environment for them to grow, but also pushed them further. "He can play and hear notes you don't even know exist," says drummer Joel Amey. "He's working at such a high level that you just wanna try and be on the same level."

You can hear the results in the swaggering monster-folk-rock of "Sadboy," offering a buck-up to miseryguts everywhere and of all genders. And their progression and maturity as songwriters is particularly obvious in the beautifully paced, sweet and slow-burning of the single "Don't Delete The Kisses," a dizzyingly romantic track that tells of the delicious agony of unspoken love between friends over softly twinkling guitar and a steady rhythm. It's a sentimental love song for people who didn't do sentimental love songs until they fell sentimentally, ridiculously in love. "How awful is that, I'm like a teenage girl!" Ellie sings. "I might as well write all over my notebook that you 'rock my world.'

Intense emotion of a quite different kind pervades "Heavenward," written about the death of a friend. It's one of the biggest songs Wolf Alice have ever done, a cloudburst of shoegazey guitar and vaulting vocals (Ellie's voice here is a much stronger, expressive thing than ever). "I'm gonna celebrate you forever," Ellie promises. "You taught us things we all should learn."

Listeners will be surprised, meanwhile, by "Beautifully Unconventional," a muscularly grooved beast of a track that's a sister in spirit, if not sound, to Bikini Kill's "Rebel Girl." It cements Ellie's reputation as the foremost smasher of whatever pop's equivalent of the Bechdel test is, following up her ode to young female friendship on "Bros." "I wrote it about one of my friends," she says. "My feelings towards her reminded me of the film Heathers , where everyone is a Heather and you find your other non-Heather… a 'you can be my partner in crime,' sorta thing."

You might have noticed the word "friend" comes up a lot in relation to Wolf Alice. More than anything, that's what these feral children are and what they celebrate. The intensity of success — something that breaks or at least tests many young bands — brought them only closer together.

"It's a weird thing," says Theo. "I hope I'm not jinxing it by saying this but we really do spend a lot of time together… we know each other so well, intricately well, more than you would have in marriage. It's so close that it almost takes on a new state rather than like a relationship or like a friendship. Maybe it's not very necessarily healthy…"

If it sounds this good, how can it be wrong? Here's to Wolf Alice, a reason for downhearted feral children to keep faith with the future.

Visions Of A Life is out on September 29 via Dirty Hit / RCA.

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Their most recent album Blue Weekend produced by Markus Dravs (Arcade Fire, Björk, Brian Eno, Florence + The Machine) sees Wolf Alice embrace a newfound boldness and vulnerability in equal measure.

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Wolf Alice, tour review: Rampaging powerhouse stay ahead of the rock pack

Nominated for a Grammy, a Brit and the Mercury Prize, Wolf Alice recently had to make do with a couple of NME Awards, including best live band. They seemed determined to live up to that victory with a blistering performance near their Camden stomping ground.

Playing four nights at the Forum, which amounts to an arena show, their Easter residency might have been scuppered when their bassist went down with an elbow infection. But Wolf Alice found a last-minute replacement in Gengahr’s John Victor, who did his best not to appear terrified.

The band’s resilience was never in doubt during a rampaging one-hour set that showed the full range of their debut, from thrashing grunge to shoegazing indie and haunting melodies.

The moshing started early and continued during the quiet-loud dynamic of Your Love’s Whore and the crashing You’re A Germ, featuring singer and guitarist Ellie Rowsell’s petulant howl. The 24-year-old may be the focus of attention for the teenage female fans but Wolf Alice are a group of equals. Guitarist Joff Oddie was the most animated person on stage, while energetic drummer Joel Amey sang lead vocal on Swallowtail.

Although some songs sounded straight out of the Nineties — Freazy was part trip-hop, part This Life theme tune — the breakneck pace was exactly how it should be done. Yet there were also inventive touches, including Oddie’s guitar effects and Rowsell’s dual microphone that switched her voice between breathy and belligerent.

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There was less finesse in early material like the Brit-grunge of Moaning Lisa Smile. But they ended on a high with Rowsell inviting a fan on stage to dance to the churning riffs of Giant Peach amid a glorious glitter explosion

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Wolf alice on september 9, 2023.

The Sebright Arms, London, United Kingdom

Note: Barnfest was a fundraiser for the Flynne's Barn Charity. It provides support for children suffering with cancer - please check out their website www.flynnesbarn.org Thank you

Wolf Alice Brings You 'Visions of a Life'

British rockers Wolf Alice are in the middle of their U.S. headline tour, inspiring both dreamy swaying and frenetic moshing night after night.

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Wolf Alice
Visit the Wolf Alice Merch Store. Wolf Alice official website. Visit for the latest news, tour dates, browse the photo gallery, listen to Wolf Alice's music and watch videos.
The Big Read
Wolf Alice might have a reputation for being able to party but they pale in comparison to veterans like Queens. They first met Josh at the first tour date in Austin, where he greeted them with shots.
'They're a force to be reckoned with': Wolf Alice manager Stephen
Back in June, in the week intro track Yuk Foo was released, Wolf Alice's manager Stephen Taverner promised Music Week that the band's second album would be "a monster".. Today, Visions Of ...
Wolf Alice
Wolf Alice are an English rock band from London, England. Formed in 2010 as an acoustic duo comprising singer Ellie Rowsell and guitarist Joff Oddie, Wolf Alice have also featured bassist Theo Ellis and drummer Joel Amey since 2012.. Wolf Alice played their first gig at Highbury Garage in December 2010 supporting April in the Shade, after Rowsell and Oddie met the band at an open mic at the ...
Wolf Alice Announce 2021 US Tour
Happy album release day to Brit alt-rockers Wolf Alice! In addition to releasing their third studio LP, Blue Weekend, the band have also announced a string of US tour dates. The 18-date trek kicks off October 25 in Seattle and wraps up November 20 in Atlanta. ... Wolf Alice 2021 Tour Dates: 10/25 - Seattle, WA @ Showbox Market. 10/26 ...
Tour
Tour Dates. 06/20/ 2022 Opening: Bleachers - Red Rocks Denver, CO Tickets. 06/21/ 2022 Opening: Halsey - Holllywood Bowl Los Angeles, CA Tickets. ... This is a fan page and in no way associated with Wolf Alice or its members. Page updated. Google Sites. Report abuse ...
Wolf Alice Announce North American Tour
You can purchase tickets and find more information about the tour here. Wolf Alice Tour Dates. March. 21 - Atlanta, GA @ The Buckhead. 22 - Chapel Hill, NC @ Cat's Cradle. 24 - Asbury Park ...
'They are just absolutely incredible': Wolf Alice manager Stephen
Wolf Alice are already enjoying a sales boost for their Mercury Prize-winning album, Visions Of A Life, which is riding high on iTunes.With 57,866 sales to date, according to the Official Charts ...
Wolf Alice announces 2022 North American tour dates
Credit: Susie Mckeon. We caught Wolf Alice last year as they toured behind 2021's Blue Weekend, and we're convinced it's a show you can't miss.Thankfully, the band has announced another run of tour dates for spring of 2022 that will see them coming back to the U.S. to play bigger rooms than ever, including a date at Red Rocks opening for Bleachers and the Hollywood Bowl opening for Halsey.
Wolf Alice Announce 2022 North American Tour Dates
Wolf Alice 2022 Tour Dates: 03/19 - Tampa, FL @ Innings Festival 03/21 - Atlanta, GA @ The Buckhead 03/22 - Chapel Hill, NC @ Cat's Cradle
Wolf Alice announce further North American 2022 tour dates
— Wolf Alice (@wolfalicemusic) March 15, 2022 Advertisement Tickets for Wolf Alice's latest set of North American tour dates will go on sale tomorrow (March 18) at 10am local time, and you ...
Wolf Alice Concerts & Live Tour Dates: 2024-2025 Tickets
Find tickets for Wolf Alice concerts near you. Browse 2024 tour dates, venue details, concert reviews, photos, and more at Bandsintown. ... Wolf Alice. 281,070 Followers. Never miss another Wolf Alice concert. Get alerts about tour announcements, concert tickets, and shows near you with a free Bandsintown account. Follow. No upcoming shows ...
Wolf Alice On Their Rock Evolution, Why The Studio Is A "Toy Shop
1 Wolf Alice On Their Rock Evolution, Why The Studio Is A "Toy Shop" & Their New Album 'Blue Weekend' 2 Twenty One Pilots' Road To 'Clancy': How The New Album Wraps Up A Decade-Long Lore; 3 Feel Lenny Kravitz's 'Blue Electric Light': How The GRAMMY-Winning Rocker Channeled His Teen Years For His New Album
Wolf Alice Announce U.S. Tour Dates
Check out their North American tour dates below and read Paste 's review of Visions Of A Life here. Wolf Alice Tour Dates: 27 - Minneapolis, Minn. @ First Avenue. 31 - Detroit, Mich. @ The ...
Wolf Alice: 'We're actually looking into playing weddings'
When Wolf Alice started work on their third album, Blue Weekend, lead singer Ellie Rowsell realised she had a problem.Maybe it was the pressure of following up 2017's Visions Of A Life, which ...
The New Wolf Alice Film Isn't Really a Wolf Alice Film
It weaves the story of two fictional characters - tour manager Estelle and crew hand Joe - into actual real footage of London indie rock group Wolf Alice as they're driven from city to city on ...
Exclusive Booking Agency for Wolf Alice
SHORT BIO. Wolf Alice are Ellie Rowsell (vocals, guitar), Joff Oddie (guitar, vocals), Joel Amey (drums) and Theo Ellis (bass). Since forming, the band have seen their 2015 gold-selling debut album My Love Is Cool soar to #2 on the UK charts, their sophomore album Visions Of A Life win the 2018 Hyundai Mercury Prize, and have picked up a GRAMMY nomination for Best Rock Performance.
Wolf Alice
Wolf Alice are Ellie Rowsell, Joff Oddie, Joel Amey and Theo Ellis. It has been a decade since the band began as a duo of Ellie Rowsell and Joff Oddie, later expanding to a four-piece, with Joel Amey and Theo Ellis joining the group. In 2022 they won Best Group at the BRIT Awards. In 2021, they saw their third album Blue Weekend soar to No.1 in ...
Wolf Alice on Touring with Harry Styles, Their New EP, and More
Unpublished recently got the opportunity to sit down with London-based alternative band, Wolf Alice, to discuss all things from their experience with touring with Harry Styles to their favorite song off their new EP.
Wolf Alice, tour review: Rampaging powerhouse ready for arenas
The 24-year-old may be the focus of attention for the teenage female fans but Wolf Alice are a group of equals. Guitarist Joff Oddie was the most animated person on stage, while energetic drummer ...
Wolf Alice
Wolf Alice. There are no upcoming events. Find concert tickets for Wolf Alice upcoming 2024 shows. Explore Wolf Alice tour schedules, latest setlist, videos, and more on livenation.com.