Ghost are headed out this summer for some headliner shows throughout Europe, with previous announced German headliner shows and festival appearances.
Today, Ghost have added to the already packed schedule and announced 2 new shows, one of which in Amsterdam, The Netherlands and the second one in Athens as part of AthensRocks.
Ghost will take the stage in Amsterdam on the 4th of june with support from Halestorm (just like the German dates). On the 25th of June, Ghost will play in Athens with support from Candlemass & more to be announced.
Check out the show posters below and let us know if you will be seeing Ghost live somewhere this summer.
Kingdom of Giants have released a brand new single Wasted Space, via their label SharptoneRecords. The release came with an accompanying music video which you can watch right below.
The band expressed their excitement for the new release, stating, “We’re thrilled to share our first new song in two and a half years. It’s been a tough time for everyone, and we’re happy to share what we’ve been working on. We hope to give our listeners a preview of what’s to come. As KOG fans know, our record will be very dynamic, but we believe that ‘Wasted Space’ has a little something for everyone.”
Stream the new single Wasted Space below and let us know your thoughts on the new music.
The Word Alive have released a brand new single titled New Reality via Thriller Records, and was produced by Hiram Hernandez (known for his work with As I Lay Dying and AVOID). Accompanied by an intense music video directed by Jake Johnston (who has worked with SleepToken and Polyphia), the new song is sure to impress fans.
With a furious sound that blends smooth vocals and powerful screams, New Reality showcases the band’s ability to cultivate a frigid atmosphere and confident dynamic. The accompanying music video immerses viewers in a spacious world, with hypnotic scenery captured by camera angles that glide through the scene.
Premiered on Octane, New Reality follows the band’s recently released single Nocturnal Future, which earned editorial playlist support from All New Metal and Crash Course.
Stream the brand new single’s music video right below and let us know your thoughts via social media!
Happy Anniversary: Avril Lavigne’s ‘Goodbye Lullaby’ Turns 12 Today
Avril Lavigne is one of the most successful and talented female artists of her generation. With her distinctive style and powerful voice, she has captured the hearts of millions of fans around the world. One of her most beloved albums, Goodbye Lullaby, celebrates its 12th anniversary today, and it’s time to celebrate this milestone.
Goodbye Lullaby was Avril Lavigne‘s fourth studio album, released on March 2, 2011. It was a significant departure from her previous work, with a more introspective and emotional tone. The album was met with critical acclaim and was a commercial success, reaching the top ten in several countries, including the United States, Canada, and Australia.
The album featured a mix of upbeat and slower songs, showcasing Avril’s versatility as a musician. The lead single, What the Hell, was a catchy and energetic pop-rock anthem that quickly became a fan favorite. The album also featured emotional ballads like Wish You Were Here and Goodbye, which highlighted Avril’s softer side and revealed a more vulnerable side of her personality.
One of the standout tracks on the album is Alice, which was featured in the 2010 Tim Burton film Alice in Wonderland. The song perfectly captured the surreal and dreamlike atmosphere of the movie, with haunting lyrics and an ethereal melody that made it one of the most memorable songs of Avril’s career.
Goodbye Lullaby was a significant departure from Avril Lavigne‘s earlier work, both musically and thematically. It was a mature and introspective album that explored themes of love, loss, and personal growth. It was clear that Avril had matured as an artist, and her music had evolved with her.
Looking back on the album 12 years later, it’s clear that Goodbye Lullaby was a pivotal moment in Avril Lavigne‘s career. It marked a significant transition from her teenage pop-punk image to a more mature and sophisticated artist. It also showed that Avril was not afraid to take risks and try new things, both musically and personally.
For fans of Avril Lavigne, Goodbye Lullaby will always hold a special place in their hearts. It was an album that spoke to them on a personal level and helped them through difficult times. For those who may not have listened to the album, it’s never too late to give it a try. Goodbye Lullaby is a timeless classic that is sure to resonate with anyone who appreciates great music.
In conclusion, the 12th anniversary of Goodbye Lullaby is a reminder of Avril Lavigne‘s incredible talent as a musician and her ability to connect with her fans on a personal level. It’s a testament to the power of music to bring people together and to help them through difficult times. Thank you, Avril, for creating such a beautiful and meaningful album, and for inspiring us all with your music. Here’s to many more years of great music from one of the most talented artists of our time.
INTERVIEW: Everything ‘The Death Of Peace Of Mind’ & More With Bad Omens’ Joakim Karlsson
While on the road for their European headliner tour surrounding their most recent album THE DEATH OF PEACE OF MIND, Bad Omens played a (way too small) show in Dynamo, Eindhoven in front of a few hundred people, while a few literal thousands of fans were sadly unable to grab tickets for the show, we sat down with Bad Omens producer, writer and guitarist Joakim “Jolly” Karlsson to discuss the new album, the insane popularity and more. Check out the conversation we had right below!
First and foremost, how are you doing today?
I’m doing good today. Absolutely. I like the Netherlands and the city’s very cute, picturesque almost. I haven’t gone far, but the little walk I’ve done is nice, little coffee shops, people were out and about and I had myself a kebab. It’s good. It’s a nice vibe coming from Hamburg, which is a little bit more grotesque, I guess.
There’s a McDonald’s and then there’s like sex signs next to it, like wow, we are in Europe. But today it’s been good. We’re all trying to settle into our bunk situation and trying to get the proper rest from catching the jet lag and all of that. But I’m not gonna complain.
How were the Hamburg shows?
They were good. It was a small place, they said it was one of the smallest ones on this run and we are coming straight from our headliner in America. Those were bigger rooms and we had our whole setup. And now we realized at the first show we had to strip down a lot of production essentially because I guess our show isn’t really catered for those small places anymore.
We like to bring a whole shebang with it. But being up there was very close, it was very intimate and everybody was singing really loud and it was really good. I think we had a really good time. So, that was a cool little start off, knocking off and I’m excited for the other ones.
We think we have bigger opinions of ourselves than our promoters do. They said we were thinking too big, because we wanted a lot of people to come and present a big show and now we heard for tonight, 2000 people were looking for a ticket and it sucks to have 2000 people not be able to come.
You came out swinging with your most recent album, THE DEATH OF PEACE OF MIND, how have you experienced these last 12 months?
It’s just been a lot of touring. We’ve been touring, then home a month, touring, home a month, and the expansion there is, we could feel even when we were opening for Underoath, we could see from the start that there were a lot of people there for us. You can see that in participation.
You can see them singing, you can see people wearing our merch and we can see people buying our merch. And that just climbed throughout the year. And then you know, a little bit later when Just Pretend got heat on TikTok, that exploded right before our headliner there and that’s created an even bigger demand.
Again, we are so grateful to sell the whole tour out before it even started just like we did in America. And then you start looking from the other end of it, like, the demand was so big and there’s so many people that won’t be able to see us. But it’s been an incredible year and it has a lot to do with TikTok which definitely boosted it.
I think that we would’ve gone places without TikTok, but that helped because it just blew it up and everyone listened to that song and then listened to the other songs and started liking the band through that little gate that opened up there. So that was our year, I guess, where everything kind of fell into place.
You create your own luck, so to speak, so I like to see that all of those seven years of hustle has a little bit to do with it. I don’t go so much online and read any comments so much or reviews anymore because I just feel like it speaks for itself with the reception we’re getting.
I’m definitely very interested when we have a few songs going on the radio and I’m always updating those stats, like, where are we right now? Because I want to go up, you know, battling ourselves. We’ve been at best number seven with Like A Villain in active radio rock in America.
So you look at all the other songs, and now it’s Just Pretend, I think we just climbed to six the other day and I was like, oh, cool. I wanna go all the way to one. So that’s my morning reading, I update that. I see all our friends dropping music and like to see them climbing, them doing good. That’s cool. But if you’re really even on these lists, I guess you’re doing quite all right, cause this is radio time I’m talking about.
You said that you would’ve liked this record to be the introduction to Bad Omens rather than the third album. Why do you feel like thiswas the album where everything else came together?
I think we find a true identity with this album. I think we completed the creation of our own pocket in this world, of so many different genres, which we have never really been interested in, genre categorization, which you can kind of hear with our album progression. It was metal core and then the second one is way more experimental.
It was definitely metal core, but we have Kingdom of Cards and we had The Fountain, we had these weird songs that show that we watch movies, I guess.And then we like to just kind of put whatever in. And I think the third one just kind of spoke to that, like it’s more of a rock album, very much a lot of production. There is a lot of things that aren’t just the guitar and the bass and the drum and the vocals, there’s like a whole world to that, that we just started to enjoy very much while writing the other albums. We got into that world, got all the plugins and started creating soundscapes around the music and it just kind of hit closest to our hearts in the third one.
If you ask what you should start with when you first start to listen to Bad Omens, we would definitely say listen to the third album first, and then if you enjoy all of that, I think you will enjoy moving back. But you will hear it is different.
Speaking about the production, on this record, you brought in like several other producers for a few of the songs. Why did you?
Me and Noah have produced the two last albums by ourselves and then we bring in friends. The other producers that are on the album, those are our roommate’s. Jesse Cash from ERRA, he just came into do room once like, “Hey, listen to this beat we just got going” and he starts doing his shit. And we were like, “we’re gonna keep that now.” and then he was a writer. Same thing with Mike, our other roommate, who’s a really good guitarist, he helped with a few of the more R&B songs. He had some cool ideas that we heard and asked him to send them over and Noah creates something on it and then, cool. We just create other people’s vibes when we hear ’em.
So it doesn’t have to be coming from us. We want to be in charge of our own product, essentially. You go to another producer, he’s gonna be the guy who’s gonna make you a good album and he knows it’s his job to essentially deliver this to the band while we and Noah know that we can do that. So we just outsource, we do everything we can, we record our own shit, we write all our shit. And then, like I said, we have good talent that comes in and just gives us ideas. And then we outsource, we don’t know how to mic up the drums and properly run that through our consoles, we go to a place that does that. A great drum room and we have the great stuff there and then we send it to someone really talented to mix it. This one just blew me away on the first turn, essentially. It was such a relief, because that’s a stressful thing.
When you worked so long on a product and then you give it to someone else to essentially to make the final touches. It better be fucking good, you know? So much money, so much time, so much of your life has been poured into this, emotion, everything, and you’re just tapped. And then he just flips back an absolute fucking perfect product. So that’s like a huge relief.
We just find the best people for the job and surround ourselves with good people. That’s how we’ve been moving forward. Same with our music videos. Those are also our friends that have been making them throughout the years.
So Bad Omens is a very in-house product. All in itself. With the videos, with the merch, we outsource that to our friends and designers as well. Some of it are our base guitarist’s designs. And then we have another friend, who’s called Davis, who’s doing all the designs and running merch with us. So we do our own merch, we do our own albums and music. And that’s something I think is cool.
It just proves that if you surround yourself with good people and they’ll do it for you, it works.
How long did the whole process for the last album take?
The most recent album, I think that was very pandemic-based, that’s when it really took speed. I’m sure we had a lot of ideas laying in the little vault we had, whatever could be on this album. But it started taking a turn around the time we were trapped in the house for a long time and that’s where Noah started having his ideas. So a lot of what I heard was just him having his vocal ideas for these pieces. It could be the verse for a song and he will work on his idea, in his room, send that over to my room and I’ll do the instruments around that or something. So it was during the pandemic when all of that really took speed.
Do you think the pandemic made its way into the record? Has it inspired some aspects?
If there was no pandemic, I’m sure that it would’ve sounded a little bit different, I think.
Because like I said, the music is also about how you feel in that moment when you’re writing it. I think if something shifts that big in the world, obviously that affects that.
It probably affected how artists draw paintings also. So yeah, in that way for sure and it played in our favor.
We were on our first headliner, we were having the time of our lives and it was doing pretty well too. It was not sold out or anything, but we were stoked about that. And we were halfway in and everything got shut down that day, halfway through our tour. So we went home and did the whole lockdown.
The second album Finding God Before God Finds Me, got a lot of love, like an acoustic and live and deluxe edition. Can we expect that kind of treatment as well?
Yeah, we’ve been talking about that and we get that question a lot during meet-and-greets, I didn’t know that it was so many people that wanted it, because I hear it a lot.
I love doing that stuff and it’s fun to take a song that sounds a certain way and just rethink it and do it pretty much the same, but from a completely different angle. We’ve been so busy but we have set apart a little bit of time this year to do a little bit of new writing and maybe a little bit of revamping, so that’s on our to-do list essentially.
Do you have any words of wisdom for bands that are just starting out? What kind of advice would you give them?
If you want to do what we do, you gotta go all in. I was a normal nine to fiver and couldn’t make any more money doing that kind of stuff, because I had a work visa and you can only get one if you work in music, so I just had to do it with music. That was my shift because I just poured each and every moment of my life into that and becoming good at that, but you know, starting out, don’t just quit your jobs. Learn to do a lot of things yourself. First of all, you gotta learn to make good music. It starts there. Don’t go out touring if you don’t have music. Write good songs. And if you’re good musicians, but not good writers, find someone that can write. There’s usually producers that can do that, or friends that can do that.
Find how to run your band like a business, you know, how are you gonna deal with taxes? How are you gonna afford this and that? Invest every dollar you get from this band into your band. Don’t put that in your pocket. Please go out and work through that. Put that into yourself. Get better shit. Buy cooler stuff. Treat it like a business. Every business puts all of its profit into itself, right?
You just have to grow like that and get bigger stuff, and then you have more money to record with better people. Have more money for product, for promotion when you get to that point that you actually have a little bit of recognition.
You have to pay your people. So that they want to work with you.
General advice is just so hard because you gotta love it. I love every moment of it. Even if sometimes it gets rough and it’s a very different job because you’re not home a lot. That isn’t for everyone, even though they think it is for the first few years.
Learn a lot yourself is I guess my biggest one.
Anything you wanna learn today, you can go to YouTube and type that in and then “tutorial”, and then find one that has a lot of hits. That’s how I’ve learned a lot about logic and that’s how I learned to play guitar in the beginning.
Everything has been learn it yourself sort of and just cater to that. Like you don’t have to go to full sale or on music college. You don’t have to think that you have to do that to succeed rather you just learn yourself, I guess. Or don’t listen to my advice at all. You’ve made me answer that question.
Bad Omens will hit the road again this summer in the United States with support from ERRA & Invent, Animate. Stream the band’s 2022 album below and secure your tickets before it’s too late.
INTERVIEW: New Era, Collaborations, Touring In Post Pandemic Times & More With PVRIS’ Lynn Gunn
We had the privilege to sit down with PVRIS’ Lynn Gunn to discuss several topics, including the band’s new music, the upcoming era & the many collaborations during crazy times before the band took the stage in Tilburg, The Netherlands. Please find our discussion below
First and foremost, how are you doing? Good. We had a great day yesterday here and explored around and had some food. We’re nice and rested for today. We were parked here and then all kind of ventured out and explored the city a little bit.
We saw some photos from the UK shows, those were very big as well. Did you bring the whole decor for the mainland shows as well?We brought what we could. Different venues have stage sizing so sometimes we can’t bring everything. But we try and make every show work with what we have.
Congrats on the new music, it’s all very exciting, with a new label as well. What can we expect from this era? A lot of fun. There’s a bit more humor sprinkled in, which I think has been lacking in PVRIS’ music and visuals. Not that it’s a bad thing, but I think that’s the next thing that’s gonna be featured a bit more.The album’s pretty high energy and we got a lot of touring booked up, and it’ll be busier, but it’ll be good.
We are playing Sad Summer Fest and then we have some unannounced stuff that’ll be very cool.
What made you decide to go with Hopeless Records for this era? I think that both us, as a band and Hopeless as a label are kind of in similar spots in their career where they wanna keep growing past the boxes that the community around them has put them in. Just as far as what you’re allowed to make.
So I think that we both have something to prove individually and together. There’s a lot of great energy between the two of us working together. And I also think that they’re doing a really great job at diversifying their label sonically and overall who they’re signing and that was something that really spoke to me and that felt important.
So I think that we’re just both in similar places where we kind of wanna keep pushing boundaries and growing and exceeding the boxes and labels that people try and put PVRIS in as a band and Hopeless in as a label.
Expanding is something that they’re really trying to continue doing and keep breaking those expectations down. So I think it’s a really good time to be teamed up with them, our intentions are really similar.
Can we expect more collaborations in the future or was it just to keep busy in a strange time? A little bit of both. There is a lot of downtime in the pandemic, but also, with the album being out but not really being able to tour off of it, it felt exciting to keep releasing music and also have other styles to bring into the catalogue a bit and bring my voice into other genres and other sounds and keep breaking those expectations of where my voice should be and what it should be sang over. So, iit was a little bit of both, but I think in the future it’s just gonna be focused on the album for a while. But if the right collaborations come up that feel like they’re absolutely undeniable..
We’re particularly fan of the one with Bad Suns, Maybe You Saved Me. Can you tell us something about that? I’ve been a big fan of Bad Suns for a long time and our whole crew really loves them and when they asked me to do it just felt right to say yes because they’ve been the soundtrack for many, many drives for us on tour and they’re really, really sweet. So, it was a great pairing and the song’s amazing, so when I heard it, I was like “yeah, absolutely!”
The fact that you’ve been creatively involved with so many songs, has that changed your outlook on songwriting and what you wanna be doing with PVRIS? I don’t think anything’s really changed. I think those collaborations kind of allowed another outlet to be able to express those things. So now I think it’s just further elaborating on that with PVRIS and continuing that. It feels like it gave a little bit of permission, even though it’s non-existent, but mentally in my head.
Let’s talk about the most recent single, GODDESS, what can you tell us about the song and what can you tell us about the music video? The song actually started as a joke, it wasn’t intentional, we didn’t sit down for a PVRIS song. But I was in the studio and I felt kind of down and frustrated and I just didn’t feel great. So we thought about what do we do to hype ourselves up?
What do we do to have a little fun today and Goddess kind of just flew out in the studio. Then after giving it some time and not listening to it and going back to it, all of us were kinda like, “wait a second, this feels good.”
And I was staying at the studio overnight and had access to the recording room and the control room. I could plug in any instrument and record it.
I remember like jokingly making the riffs of Goddess that night. I was just joking around, making riffs and then I saved it and forgot that I’d even started the session. And then JT, when we worked together, he went in in the morning and he had found the session and he said, “I don’t know what you did last night, but I fucked with a little bit” and then he hit play and it was the whole instrumental for it. And it sounded way cooler than what I started. But it was everything I tracked together and he thought we should write to it.
And then I was like, “this is great, this track’s awesome. Let’s kind of put it on ice for a second and maybe focus on other stuff.” And then, that day I was feeling down came and he was like, “let’s pull this up and let’s get the energy back up in the room.”
When can we expect the music video? Very soon, it’s just been finalized. I shot it right before I flew over for rehearsals out here. It’s kind of a continuation of the Animal video and kind of living in that world still. Tthat’s all I can really say. And there’s several clones in it. More clones than you’d usually see in a video.
How does it work for PVRIS to record an album? Do you work with multiple sessions? That’s usually how I work best. I think the first two albums, ideas were started, kind of scattered around, and then to record the album, we were two months, or three months in the same location, tracking everything and getting it right, but I definitely work better in the moment. I definitely take in the environments that I’m visiting so I would definitely like to work that way and kind of work more spur of the moment and have more time to get inspired, process what you just got inspired by, write about it and just kind of cycle through and keep doing that versus sitting down for one dedicated chunk of time and just being expected to like process all of it and get all of it. So I definitely think more separate periods of work feel really good.
How does that work when you’re on the road? It doesn’t happen so much anymore, but I think once we’re back in the groove of touring, post-pandemic, I’ll get back into the swing of it, but I used to start a lot of stuff on the road. This tour has been a lot of remembering how to tour.
But it’s really fun to start stuff if you’re back here in the green room, in between when you have downtime and just start ideas. You can always go home and finish them.
Has it become much more difficult to tour in your experience? Or is it just picking up where you left off? As far as resources and being able to put on the best show we can, it’s definitely hard. I think a lot of bands are in the same position. You have to rebuild a little bit. But after sorting that out and having that kind of checked off, it’s been really easy being back cause we’re just really happy and excited to be back out on the road and grateful to be able to keep doing this.
Luckily we have an amazing crew and team around us to figure out how to make everything still possible and still as high quality as we can get it.
Do you feel this pressure from the world as it becomes more expensive? Obviously, you write the music that you wanna write, but is there a little voice in the back of your mind where you have the commercial needs of your label and crew in mind? It’s gone. Anytime that starts to creep in, I just really shut it down immediately because I think people want something that’s real. I don’t think it has any value to create something just to make money. You obviously hope it’s gonna do well and be able to feed everybody but it is never the main priority. And if it becomes that, I’m gonna quit and move to the mountains and make clay pots.
Is there something you’re hoping to accomplish on this cycle? Firstly, I just wanna enjoy it and get back out and be able to do it, and not lose sight of that. Secondly, staying inspired. With the album coming out, I hope to connect it with more people and the right people that are supposed to listen to it and people that reflect where I’m at and where they’re at. So continuing to do this and being aligned with the right people and audience feels good.
Favorite European city to visit on tour? Usually it’s Amsterdam. Yeah, I’d say Amsterdam or Vienna. But Prague’s really cool. Budapest is really cool, but every time we’re in Amsterdam or anywhere in the Netherlands, we’re really happy.
Favorite song to play live? Currently, a very fun one is Deadweight or Gimme a Minute. They’re both journeys, vocally and on guitar they’re really fun. So you get a little bit of everything and it keeps me on my toes. I always fuck something up, when we’re playing it, but it’s fun.
If you could collaborate with one artist that you haven’t yet, which artist would you pick? I would love to produce for Florence or Rihanna or The Weekend. Or working with The Weekend in any way. Or Post Malone.
What’s your favorite ice cream flavor? Are we talking classic flavors? Because there’s some really cool ice cream shops near me that do some weird ones. So then, goat cheese and cherry. And then of like regular flavors, probably mint and chocolate chip.
Stream PVRIS’ most recent single Goddess below and let us know if you are excited for the upcoming PVRIS era! Don’t forget to catch PVRIS on the road later this year, as they head out on tour with Fall Out Boy for a string of shows in Europe!
