Yup. I had a long-ass chat with Jet ahead of their reformation/reunion shows with Bruce Springsteen. It was pretty great to hang and talk with a band that I grew up seeing in pubs in Melbourne and watching their stature grow to where you still hear “Are You Gonna Be My Girl” in US sports arenas.
It was fun. Read it here.
Hey! I interviewed Metallica.
More specifically, I got to chat to Kirk Hammett for an unreasonably long time about the relationship between he, James Hetfield and Lar Ulrich, how he lost his phone with 250+ riff ideas for their new album, how fans engage with Metallica now, what the band could mean to a teenager in 2017, the band’s inestimable legacy and what Metallica are in 2017.
It was really cool. Check it out here at Fasterlouder.
(and, if you dig it, check out my deep dive on whether their 1996 album Load is actually any good too)
“AFI trade in the kind of darkness that isn’t so much dangerous as it is fodder for a bad tattoo” – read my full review of the new AFI album, AFI (The Blood Album) for Rolling Stone right here.
Pro tip: Their OTT ridiculousness is kinda fun
“…write muscly punk-rock songs, add Celtic flourishes (mandolin, bagpipes etc), and make sure you can sing along while shitfaced” – sounds about right.
Read my full review of the new Dropkick Murphys record, 11 Short Stories of Pain and Glory right here at Rolling Stone.
I made some new year resolutions for Bojan Bogdanovic and Joe Harris for The Brooklyn Game. Oddly enough, there’s a Taken 4 mention in there.
Have a read here.
jaymz clements 