Month: April 2022

As The Saga of the Slap continues, Oscars producer Will Packer is defending how the all-consuming Will Smith and Chris Rock moment was handled despite the chaos that ensued behind the scenes. During an in-depth interview with Good Morning America, Packer walked through what happened from the moment Rock left the stage to the surreal moment when Smith, who was still in the building, took the podium and received a standing ovation while accepting the Oscar for Best Actor.

According to Packer, Rock was the one who fought to keep Smith in the building and out of handcuffs, which the LAPD was ready to do. As for the Academy members applauding Smith, Packer claims it had nothing to do with The Slap. Via Variety:

“It wasn’t like this was somebody they didn’t know,” Packer said. “It doesn’t make anything that he did right, and doesn’t excuse that behavior at all, but I think that the people in that room who stood up stood up for somebody who they knew, who was a peer, who was a friend, who was a brother, who has a three decades-plus long career of being the opposite of what we saw in that moment. I think these people saw the person that they know and were hoping that somehow, some way this was an aberration…I don’t think that these were people that were applauding anything at all about that moment.”

As for the conflicting reports on whether or not Smith was asked to leave the building, Packer denied reports that he spoke to Smith and told the actor he wanted him to stay. The Oscars producer said he never had any conversations with Smith directly after The Slap, but he was told that Academy members wished to “physically remove” Smith from the building, which obviously, didn’t occur. However, Packer did say that Smith reached out the next morning and apologized for the incident.

(Via Variety)

Sky Ferreira‘s debut album, the 2013 Night Time, My Time, is a whirlwind of alt-rock that became a staple of 2010s indie music almost instantly. The wait for her follow-up Masochism has been torturously long; last year, though, she said it would be “actually coming out this time” when it was put on a list of most anticipated albums of 2022. Though fans remained skeptical, Ferreira’s mother built up the suspense by sharing a photo of her daughter on her Instagram Story with the words, “new album coming March.”

So, of course, the grunge-pop star waited until the last day of March to prove herself. She posted a teaser clip on Instagram yesterday—only 18 seconds of a searing, heavy sound floating aimlessly behind her airy, echoey vocals. The art says “Don’t Forget,” which many are interpreting as the title of this possible single. The caption reads: “remember me?”

In 2019, Ferreira released the song “Downhill Lullaby” and appeared as a featured guest on Charli XCX’s self-titled album on the song “Cross You Out.” She has also expressed struggles in the past regarding her record label, which have definitely impacted her ability to release a full album. Fingers crossed that those issues have been sorted out…

Several beloved series are screeching back into town in April.

That’s one highlight of what’s happening this month, which will lead to so much TV that you’ll never have time to watch it all. Not only is Breaking Bad prequel Better Call Saul returning for the final season (and possibly tying together the timelines), but Ozark will bring you the second half of its final, supersized season. Both of these shows could end up killing fan-favorite characters, so prepare yourselves accordingly.

Speaking of untimely deaths, Natasha Lyonne’s Russian Doll is returning to do the Groundhog Day thing in a different way than it did last time. And Barry is looking to put an end to all the death, but good luck with that, pal. Expect return seasons of additional popular series (The Flight Attendant, Woke) and a few gangster-evoking offerings as well. Here are the must-see TV offerings for the coming month.

Woke: Season 2 (Hulu series streaming 4/8)

The Marshall Todd and Keith Knight-created series about “Keef Knight,” cartoonist, picks up in world where business = wokeness. Keef and his ragtag group of friends are attempting to do the activist thing while also climbing that ladder further as a marketable artist. Those worlds collide in a world where talking trashcans also exist, so expect heavy nerding here and razor-sharp satire. Lamorne Morris, T. Murph, Blake Anderson, Sasheer Zamata, and JB Smoove star, and Maurice “Mo” Marable is still executive producing, so you’re in good hands.

The Kardashians: Season 1 (Hulu series streaming 4/14)

Kim Kardashian drummed up some controversy while recently telling women to, uh, work, so she’s got no new friends these days, but hey, the rest of the family is here and acting like gangsters in in the above trailer where they attempt to sound The Godfather-esque. Kanye West will make an appearance, even though that divorce already went through, and expect the whole family to catch you up with what’s been going in their lavish lifestyle since they quit their E! show after over 20 seasons. One can’t question how the fam’s image-management has kept them going strong, so we’ll see if they can keep going in the streaming realm.

Outer Range: Season 1 (Amazon Prime series streaming 4/15)

Yellowstone, it ain’t. Josh Brolin does, however, portray a rancher in Wyoming, where the expansive wilderness there is quite unlike the terrain of his No Country For Old Men days. There’s sardonic humor here (and Brolin is always fantastic in that department) amid a supernatural mystery after a young woman disappears, and suddenly, a profit-hungry ranch family attempts to intrude on everyone else’s land. There’s a black void lurking, though, which will start to trigger revelations and set off a whole host of troubling and tension-filled happenings.

The First Lady (Showtime series streaming 4/17)

The A-list cast won’t stop here with Viola Davis playing Michelle Obama, Michelle Pfeiffer playing Betty Ford, and Gillian Anderson playing Eleanor Roosevelt. These three enigmatic ladies’ stories will be interwoven through time while the political drama simply swirls around them. In addition, look forward to seeing Dakota Fanning within the cast while Kiefer Sutherland steps up to portray President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Maybe you’re tired of politics these days, but it’s worth reliving some of the more iconic moments of yesteryear to forget the cable news cycle.

Better Call Saul: Season 5 (AMC series returning 4/18)

Another character that cannot die, or the fans will rage: Kim Wexler. The anxiety for her runs high going into the final season (coming to AMC on 4/18) as the spinoff grows ever closer to the Breaking Bad timeline. And since she never surfaces in that flagship series, things feel very ominous, also because those finger guns and Saul Goodmanification do not bode well for her. But maybe she’ll show up in a Cinnabon scene. One can hope!

Mayans M.C.: Season 4 (FX series returning 4/19)

This red-tinged teaser continues to push wartimes between charters, and somehow, EZ and Angel are both alive (although not exactly well) while attempting to deal with fallout from the Santo Padre M.C.’s failed attempt at a widespread, united front. Where, exactly, is Miguel after Emily dumped his ass after learning that he tried to kill her? That’s an underrated part of the drama at this point, and in the background, Felipe’s dealing with betrayal-related consequences as well.

Russian Doll: Season 2 (Netflix series streaming 4/20)

Say it with me: what a concept. The close to perfect first season presented quite a dilemma, which is how to follow up the debut while believably upping Nadia and Charlie’s respective ongoing plights. Also, Charlie’s got quite a mustache now, and Annie Murphy has joined the cast while one of the show’s new YouTube revealed taglines is “The universe is back on its bulls@%t.” This season, there’s a time portal and hauntings from the past and, uh oh, more stairs.

The Flight Attendant: Season 2 (HBO Max series streaming 4/21)

After the events of the last season finale, you’d think that Kaley Cuoco’s Cassie would get her act together and maybe not wake up (hungover) in the middle of a murder mystery again. Think again! Well, we don’t know if liquor is involved this time around because Cassie’s attempting to drop the booze and persist in “making better choices.” She’s still attending to flights and now based in Los Angeles, but somehow she’s how helping out the CIA as a part-time gig. Thankfully, Zosia Mamet and Rosie Perez are back on the scene, and there’s international intrigue afoot again.

Barry: Season 3 (HBO series returning 4/24)

After nearly three years off the map (the world’s been busy, alright?), Bill Hader’s finally back in the realm of his contract killer, but Barry’s not into it. He wants out, and he’d like to finally just act instead, but now, it’s time to turn inward and discovery why he started this killing business at all. As it turns out, it’s not so easy to abandon one’s darker tendencies, even when the instruments disappear. Hopefully, there will be more dancing from NoHo Hank to help everyone unravel the really important answers here.

We Own This City: Season 1 (HBO series streaming 4/25)

The Wire creator David Simon goes back to Baltimore in this series that digs further into the police force of Charm City. This show bases itself upon Justin Fenton’s book about Freddie Gray’s death in 2015 and all the law enforcement maneuvering that followed. Jon Berthal portrays a plainclothes unit leader who’s the very definition of corrupt and pocketing all manner of money, gleaned from drug deals and citizens alike. Treat Williams plays one of many investigators who are trying to take down the bad cops, and yup, this is David Simon territory for sure.

The Offer (Paramount+ limited series streaming 4/28)

Believe it or not (side-eyeing pretty much every superhero movie these days) three-hour movies were not typical. They were actually very difficult to pull off, and this 10-part series shows how Frances Ford Coppola (Dan Fogler) wasn’t the only one one who struggled to bring Mario Puzo’s saga to life. Miles Teller portrays legendary producer Albert S. Ruddy, who did a lot of the fighting here, and Giovanni Ribisi portrays crime boss Joe Colombo. The rest of the cast includes Juno Temple, Matthew Goode, Burn Gorman, and Colin Hanks.

Ozark: Season 4 Part 2 (Netflix series streaming 4/29)

Alright, one thing is certain: this season is gonna be violent and probably not end well for the Byrde family, who only wanna flee from their money-laundering adventures and go back to their cushy Chicago lives. Is that even possible at this point? Only these last episodes will tell that tale, and Ruth is hellaciously angry about losing almost everything in the world. She’s the centerpiece of the above teaser, and we’ll see if she can finally rise above that “cursed Langmore” status that she keeps clinging onto. There’s more cursed cookie jar, too, so we’ll see if she can rise above those ashes. She doesn’t seem too afraid to die, but please, don’t let that happen to her.

Shining Girls: Season 1 (Apple TV+ series streaming 4/29)

Following Mad Men, Elisabeth Moss’ career flew sky high, and she moved into leading lady status with The Handmaid’s Tale. Things grew every more gripping with her turn in The Invisible Man, and she’s returning to the horror realm with this adaptation of Lauren Beukes’ novel that feels like the lovechild between Stephen King and Gillian Flynn. Moss portrays a newspaper archivist who survives an assault and heads out with Wagner Moura’s reporter to find out whodunnit, but time and reality keep on twisting.

(Spoilers for Netflix’s Bad Vegan will be found below.)

Ex-celebrity restauranteur Sarma Melngailis, the Bad Vegan subject, has taken umbrage with multiple elements of the Netflix show, which charts how she rose of the New York City restaurant charts and ended up as a fugitive of the law. Sarma first took issue with how she felt “sick” over how Netflix was marketing the show (which “mocked” her cult-like belief in the dog-immortality claim). She also didn’t appreciate the nebulous ending of the show, which didn’t make entirely clear when she had spoken on the phone (it was 2019) with ex-husband Anthony Strangis. That arguably lent the appearance that the two were recently in contact, and joking, and it led to a lot of criticism coming Sarma’s way.

Sarma’s now very upset about promotional images for the show, which show a glammed up version of her, which she compared to a fall-from-grace iteration that shows her looking much worse for wear. Here’s what she wrote on Instagram:

“Me looking like a glamorized villain eating a cash salad is not me. It may help Netflix sensationalize the story, but at my expense, and at the expense of a greater understanding of the larger issue including #coercivecontrol, #narcisssisticabuse, #cultmindcontrol and more.”

Via the New York Post, Sarma also revealed a 2016 letter that she’d written to Strangis, who she accused of using her email account to ask Alec Baldwin for money. She also accused him of brainwashing her and taking everything away from her to support his gambling habit:

“Everything is gone – the restaurant, the brand, my home, my work, my employees, my customers, even all my things: clothes, papers, files, photos, everything. Also, my integrity. And scariest of all for me: my independence. You figured me out – what would work on me. You reeled me in, then got me trapped by borrowing money you’d promise to repay. Only a little at first, but that was the hook. I wanted to be repaid, so I’d let you back in. I’d let you back into my home when I’d resolved to have nothing to do with you again because you were telling me you had cash to pay me back.

“Then somehow you’d pull some insane mind-f***kery and would end up borrowing more. How that happened, I don’t even know. Why did I give you more? How did that happen? How did you do that?”

Sarma, as detailed in Bad Vegan, eventually funneled nearly $2 million from her restaurant funds, stiffing investors and depriving her employees of paychecks for weeks. She and Strangis went on the run, staying at hotel casinos and in random places, eventually getting busted for orderi ng Dominos pizza and wings. The story irked a lot of people and also seemed very unbelievable, but sometimes, life really is stranger than fiction.

In the end, Sarma insists that she used her Netflix money to pay back her employees. She’s apparently writing, and maybe that will turn into a book, and she’s made no secret of wanting her own restaurant again and keeping Anthony Strangis far away from her while investing her time with her her dog, Leon. Hopefully, it stays that way.

On Thursday, diabetics across the country breathed a sigh of relief when the Affordable Insulin Now Act—legislation that would lower the maximum insurance co-pay of insulin to no more than $35 per month—passed the House. The final vote, according to NBC News, was a surprisingly close 232-193. What might be less surprising is that the 193 votes against lowering the cost of a drug that could save the lives of countless people, and improve the lives of millions more, all came from Republican voters. (Only 12 Republicans voted in support of the legislation.)

The way Democrats see it, the Affordable Insulin Now Act is all about saving lives. As NBC reported, Michigan Rep. Dan Kildee, one of the bill’s sponsors, told his fellow congresspeople from the House floor ahead of the vote: “As a father of a Type 1 diabetic, I have seen firsthand how the high price of prescription drugs like insulin can harm patients and harm families. When my daughter turned 26 and got her own health insurance, there were months where she spent a third of her take-home pay—because she’s diabetic—on staying alive.”

For Republicans, the matter is not so cut-and-dry. While the bill would reduce the out-of-pocket costs for the millions of insulin-dependent diabetics across the country, those savings would need to come out of someone else’s pocket.

“This bill is an exemplar of the fact that [Democrats] want the government to control our lives in every way they possibly can,” North Carolina congresswoman Virginia Foxx said, calling the plan “a massive power grab that will lead our country one step closer to socialized medicine.”

Insurance companies are also against it. AHIP (formerly known as America’s Health Insurance Plans), an advocacy and trade organization made up of health insurance companies, issued a statement claiming that, “While health insurance providers work to reduce insulin costs, this policy unfortunately does nothing to lower the price of insulin but simply shifts costs to others through higher insurance premiums and copays.”

According to the CDC, 37.3 million Americans—or one out of every 10 people—are currently living with diabetes, and one in five people aren’t even aware they have it. Another 96 million people (more than one in three) have pre-diabetes, and are at risk of being diagnosed. Compounding the problem is the COVID pandemic; a recent, large-scale study found that people who have had even mild cases of COVID are at a 40 percent higher risk of being diagnosed with diabetes within a year of their coronavirus infection.

Forbes reports that the cost of insulin is generally $175 to $300 per vial, and that many diabetes sufferers require up to three vials per month. It’s a life-saving drug, but many simply cannot afford it. Which is partly why diabetes is the seventh leading cause of death in the U.S., killing more than 87,000 people each year.

Needlessly to say, some were flummoxed and outraged over the Republican opposition to the bill.

Now that the bill has passed the House, it will move on to the Senate, who will decide its fate.

(Via NBC News)

In February, Big Thief started the year strong with Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You, an expansive 20-track album this is sure to end on some year-end lists. When it comes to promotional performances, the lengthy album has given the band plenty of songs to pick from, especially since the album has so far spawned eight singles.

Well, they were on The Tonight Show and for the broadcast, they went with “Spud Infinity.” Big Thief delivered a remote, pre-taped performance, taking to a simple living room to play the song.

While this is a new performance, hearing the song live is far from a new experience for Big Thief fans, as the group has played the tune on stage as far back as 2017.

In a Rolling Stone feature from earlier this year, the band’s James Krivchenia remembers Lenker showing him “Spud Infinity,” which she didn’t think much of at the time (the track’s lyrics include, “When I say heart, I mean finish / The last one there is a potato knish”). Krivchenia said, “I heard it and I was like, ‘Adrianne, I’m crying right now.’ She was like, ‘But I say ‘garlic bread.’ You can’t say ‘garlic bread’ in a song.’”

Watch Big Thief perform “Spud Infinity” on The Tonight Show above.

It would hardly be an understatement to say that Seth Meyers is positively giddy about being able to report on Madison Cawthorn’s claims that being a Republican congressman can often be akin to being the key master at a ‘70s swingers party. (Side note: Meyers is also pretty enthusiastic about Ang Lee’s 1997 masterpiece The Ice Storm, and you should listen to him on that.)

Thursday marked the second night in a row that the Late Night host dedicated the bulk of his “A Closer Look” segment to the rumors that “key bumps” of coke and casual orgies are just as common in DC’s most powerful circles as roll calls and re-election campaigns. Though, given the subject matter—i.e. Republicans members and orgies—Meyers decided to re-brand the segment “A Distant Look.” Meyers kicked things off by declaring that Cawthorn’s casual statement about the GOP’s coke-fueled orgies is “one of the weirdest political scandals in recent memory, which is saying a lot. Let’s remember: The president drew on an official weather map with a Sharpie and tried to pass it off as real.”

But getting to the matter at hand: Meyers, in addition to pointing out that Cawthorn is likely “the first dude with a backwards baseball cap who calls [an orgy] a ‘sexual get-together,” thinks that the most amusing part of the entire story is that the spouses of many GOP leaders seem to believe it. As Meyers said:

“[T]he funniest part of this whole thing is the uproar it has caused within the GOP caucus among Republican members of congress, who are now getting questions about it—including questions from their own spouses…

“Yeah, I BET they are! If you went on a trip to Vegas just to play the slots with some of your buddies and one of them posted on Facebook, ‘EVERYONE I’M WITH DID COCAINE AT AN ORGY!!!,’ you’d get some spousal follow-up questions, too.”

But it’s not just significant others who have questions. Constituents do, too. Meyers shared a clip of Chris Hayes, who explained that Steve Womack—a 65-year-old Republican congressman from Arkansas—is getting questions about his sexual proclivities from his constituents, too.

Of course, “this is exactly what they deserve,” Meyers said. “Because it’s not like Republican members of Congress can just say, ‘that’s a crazy conspiracy theory’ when so many of them ran on crazy conspiracy theories.” (yes, Seth’s looking at you, Marjorie Taylor Greene.)

You can watch the full clip above.

To say a lot happened in pop culture this week would be an understatement. The music world collectively mourned the loss of Foo Fighters’ drummer Taylor Hawkins. A day later, cultural discourse was dominated by Will Smith slapping Chris Rock at the Oscars. This week on Indiecast, hosts Steven Hyden and Ian Cohen recap the week and name the first album that disappointed them.

Speaking of disappointing albums, this week’s main segments are about the new LPs from Red Hot Chili Peppers and Machine Gun Kelly. RHCP’s Rick Rubin-produced Unlimited Love dropped this week, the band’s first album in six years. Indiecast‘s thoughts on the mid-tempo album can pretty much be summed up in two words: It’s fine. Machine Gun Kelly is an artist that’s more used to getting flack from critics, and it shows on his album Mainstream Sellout. It’s his second pop-punk album thus far and both Steven and Ian think he might be better than his detractors believe.

In this week’s Recommendation Corner, Ian shouts out the anticipated new album by Pup, The Unraveling Of PupTheBand. Steven mentions his interview with The Gaslight Anthem’s Brian Fallon ahead of their 2022 reunion tour.

New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 83 on Spotify below, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You can submit questions for Steve and Ian at indiecastmailbag@gmail.com, and make sure to follow us on Instagram and Twitter for all the latest news. We also recently launched a visualizer for our favorite Indiecast moments. Check those out here.

Some of the artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

This week, New Jersey arena-punk band The Gaslight Anthem announced that they would be returning to full-time status as a concert and recording outfit. In addition to a reunion tour slated for the fall, there are plans to record their first album since 2014’s Get Hurt.

For followers of the band’s frontman Brian Fallon, all of this might have registered as a surprise. The 42-year-old singer-songwriter has put out solo albums at a steady clip since the hiatus, including his fourth full-length release, Night Divine, in 2021. And the music he’s made on his own has veered far from the rousing, Springsteen-inspired fist pumpers that populate well-loved Gaslight Anthem albums like 2008’s The 59 Sound, 2010’s American Slang, and 2012’s Handwritten, which debuted in Billboard‘s top 10. On his own, Fallon has moved in an Americana direction, favoring acoustic guitars and introspective lyrics grappling with adult disappointments, a far cry from the cinematic storytelling associated with The Gaslight Anthem.

When reached by phone this week, Fallon said that after his 2020 album Local Honey he felt like he had closed a chapter on his creative life. Now there’s a familiar urge that harks to his past. “You know what’s pretty cool? Rock music,” he says. “Playing guitars. I want to turn up something to 10 and play. Kick an amp over or something. That sounds great right now.”

In the following interview, Fallon explains how The Gaslight Anthem reunion came about, why it’s important to him that the band make new music, and the inspiration he took from the 2011 Pearl Jam Twenty documentary.

When you guys announced your hiatus back in 2015, the statement read, “We’d like to recharge and take a step back until we have something to feel excited about.” What are you excited about now with The Gaslight Anthem?

During quarantine, I had gotten so bored. You go back to all your biographies and rock ‘n’ roll documentaries you’ve already seen 50 times, and the one thing that I kept thinking to myself is, “Man, I really like bands.” It really is one in a million that you get to do something like this. So, not being able to do anything and having time to think maybe is what allowed it to happen.

You remembered, “Hey, I’m also in a really good band!”

I know that sounds so stupid to say, but it’s so true. I’m like, “My band’s pretty good, what’s the matter with me?”

You labeled your break as a hiatus, which is what bands always do these days instead of officially breaking up. But in your mind, did you ever think The Gaslight Anthem was over for good?

Everybody likes to blame me for the hiatus, but it wasn’t just me. It was a collective decision. We all were like, “This sucks, let’s stop doing this before we embarrass ourselves.”

I like things to be definite in my life. And I like to have solid answers. But this was one of those things that just wouldn’t allow that. I read about how Noel Gallagher just straight up quit Oasis. And I was like, “What if you change your mind? Then all of a sudden you’re like, ‘we quit, just kidding, the final tour, not really’?”

Did you guys stay in touch during the break?

Ben [Horowitz] and I have always been very close — sometimes close at each others throats in the early days. Now that we’re older, though, we would always talk. I would talk to Alex [Levine] and Alex [Rosamilia], too, just to get updates: What are you doing? How’s your family? What’s going on in your life? We all were pretty current with each other, but Ben and I really stayed in touch. Whether we were talking about music or not, we were just always talking. I think getting older changes your perspective on everything. You look and go, “Oh maybe that thing that I was so mad about is not so important.”

Did those anniversary shows the band played in 2018 for The 59 Sound pave the way for this reunion?

I don’t think it did, actually. That sort of made me think, “Well, maybe all that’s left is that.” I walked away feeling more final than when I walked away the first time. If we’re only talking about celebrating past records, that’s really not a path I want to go down. I’m not trying to say anything bad about anybody who wants to celebrate their work. It’s fine. But it’s just not for me. Unless you’re adding to it as well.

How did you make the leap from thinking, “I like being in a band” to the much more ambitious idea of actually writing new Gaslight Anthem songs and reviving the band as a creative enterprise?

Very slowly. [Laughs.] Cautiously. I mean, it had been something that I was thinking about for a while and I didn’t say anything to anyone. I didn’t even say anything to my wife. I wasn’t sure if I really wanted it to happen. And if I said it out loud, I was like, “Does it mean that it’s going to happen?”

I spoke to Ben first. I was like, “I have to come over to your house and we should talk.” I told him when I was thinking and he was positive, but he said, “If you want to do new stuff, then I’m interested. And if you don’t, then I’m not.” I made a deal with myself and I was like, “If I can write four songs that I feel are quality, I’ll call Ben.” And I did. I was like, “Okay, I got four songs. Here’s some iPhone demos. What do you think of this?” I sent them to everybody, actually.

I went over Ben’s house and I sat down with him and it was like, “Is this really happening? Could we do this?” And we just played together for a sec. Because if he and I couldn’t have gotten it together, I don’t think any of it would’ve been the same.

Was that an anxious moment?

There was a lot of trepidation. But once I actually saw him and we sat down, and I was like, “Okay.”

And then, when I talked to Alex and Alex, it had been long enough that we knew what needed to happen. We had a good roadmap. That’s the benefit of being a band for a long time — you know these are the years that it worked really well. And then it sucked here and this is why it sucked. When you have distance from something you can see the moments where it’s like, “Wow, we tried that thing out and it didn’t go right.” So, we went back to the place where it was really working well.

The music you’ve made in your solo career has been pretty different from The Gaslight Anthem. You’ve moved into an Americana/singer-songwriter lane. Do you think you’ll incorporate that style into the band? Or are you now back in the business of writing Gaslight Anthem songs?

Well, I think it’s two sides that have always been there. Even on like the early, early records, like Sink Or Swim, you have “The Navesink Banks” and “Red At Night” that are more Americana. But I know that when I finished doing Local Honey, there was very strong sense of completion. When that record was done, I felt I had achieved something, whatever it was that I was working at. And I was like, “Well, chapter closed. What am I going to do now? You know what’s pretty cool? Rock music. Playing guitars. I want to turn up something to 10 and play. Kick an amp over or something. That sounds great right now.”

Do you think you had burned out on rock music after Get Hurt? It seemed like you were deliberately running away from that for a long time.

It’s true that there was a while there where I was interested in music that was slower and more reflective, and trying to focus on lyrics or singing quieter. But there was also that feeling of, “I’m 40, can I still jump up and down on stage? Or am I an idiot now if I do that?” I wasn’t feeling a sense of mortality. It wasn’t that serious, It was more like, “Will I feel like a clown if I do this?” I am a firm supporter of young bands, and innovation coming from the youth. But I also think that innovation is required for any project to continue going or else it sort of doesn’t need to exist.

I was watching all those documentaries, and I looked at the Foo Fighters — Dave Grohl is at least 10 years older than me, and he’s awesome. They’re jumping up and down, having a great time. And that was encouraging to me.

You said earlier that you have perspective now on when things were going well for the band and when things weren’t. What lessons are you going to be able to apply moving forward?

In the Pearl Jam Twenty DVD, there’s this part where Stone Gossard says, “And then it became the year of no.” And I was like, Oh dude, right. Because when we were young, we were always told, “If you say no to this tour, your career’s going to be over.” And we realized that none of that is true. So, now we know to say, “Hey, if there’s excitement, then let’s move forward. If there’s not excitement, then let’s just pause for a second and figure out why there’s not excitement.” And then we can find that again.

You already have a tour lined up for the fall. When do you hope to make a record?

I’ve always been like a fan of writing more than you need. So, right now I’ve got maybe five or six songs, and I would want to have 30 to pick through and make sure that we’re actually good. The shows will come first, and then hopefully by the end of the year the record will be written to the point where we could pick 11 or 12 songs and then record. So, that would be early next year, early spring.

Britney Spears is best known for her music, of course, but she’s done some acting, too, most notably with a starring role in 2002’s Crossroads. That movie celebrated its 20th anniversary in February and now, Spears has looked back on it by making a sad connection between her character Lucy’s journey and her real life.

Spears shared a clip from the movie on Instagram and wrote, “Scene in a movie I did a ways back !!! When I realized my whole journey to find my mom … and she doesn’t want to see me !!! I know … PRETTY F*CKING SAD !!! I mean [crying emojis] … Psss I mean it’s actually less worse than what my mom did to me in real life so …”

Spears previously accused her mother of being the mastermind behind her conservatorship and said she “secretly ruined my life.”

As for what’s going on in that Crossroads scene, the Wikipedia plot summary of the movie notes in part, “Lucy reveals that her mother left her and her father when she was three years old, but believes that her mother wants to see her again. […] In Tucson, Lucy finds her mother Caroline (Kim Cattrall), who has remarried with two young sons, and is unhappy to see her. Caroline reveals that Lucy was an unintended pregnancy and that she wants nothing to do with her, leaving Lucy heartbroken. At the motel, Ben consoles Lucy and impresses her by writing music to a poem she has written during the trip.”

Crossroads director Tamra Davis recently spoke about Spears and the movie for its anniversary, telling Variety of working with Spears, “[Producer] Ann Carli called and said, ‘Would you be interested in directing a movie starring Britney Spears?’ At first, I said no. I think it’s always a challenge to do a movie that’s starring somebody who is not considered an actress, and she was known mostly at that time being a performer, so I had no idea if she knew how to act. Ann said, ‘Well, at least go out and meet her. She’s doing a MTV thing in Las Vegas. Will you go meet her?’ […] She was hilarious and I just thought she was amazing. We spent the whole day together and she proved to me that she really wanted to do this and put in the work and wanted it and was very serious about it.”