Audacy Check-In

On the heels of his latest release 'I’ve Tried Everything But Therapy (Part 2),' following the outrageously successful run he had with his debut album, Teddy Swims checked in with Audacy’s Mike Adam at the Hard Rock Hotel New York to chat about his musical roots, superior song covers, future fatherhood fears, and more. Definitively putting him on the map, Teddy's soulful anthem “Lose Control” was crowned Song of the Year on Billboard's 2024 Year-End Hot 100 Songs chart, and also claimed the No. 1 spot on Audacy’s 2024 Top Songs. The track’s monumental success also earned Swim's a 'Best New Artist' nomination at the 2025 GRAMMYs, at which he's also performed, along with his fellow nominees. While discussing Teddy’s current genre-spanning musical vibes, Mike asked the musician if there was a particular genre he feels the most comfortable in, or one he wishes he felt more comfortable in. Attributing the starting point to developing his powerful pipes began with metal, Swims, shared, “My roots are as a screamer before I was a singer. So I think, like, I'm one of the gnarliest screamers.” “I don't even think I'm that good of a singer,” Teddy humbly added, pointing to his throat, but actually vocal chords, to say, "I love this instrument… I think I can do all the acrobatics that it takes to do a singer. But I think I'm a really good screamer. I think my most favorite thing, like, where I'm most comfortable in is metal.” Whether Teddy will ever get to scratch that itch again? He confessed he doesn’t know. However he is rather proud of getting “a writing cut on the new Linkin Park record,” and rightfully so. “I wrote with them and did a few records with them…” Swims shared. Noting he “told Mike Shinoda, on the next record I was like, ‘Come on bro, you gotta put me on that record, bro.’” And while acknowledging that Emily Armstrong, the band’s relatively recently announced new lead singer, “is out of this world, like, incredible,” in his own self interest, he told Shinoda, “You should have left my voice on one of those songs, man.” Raised in the South, Teddy grew up on soul music after being introduced to it by his dad, but he also grew up playing football, and was also a theater kid. Which made Mike wonder if Teddy felt like at any point he was living in completely different worlds. While some might feel as though all those factors contrast, Teddy doesn’t agree, which makes so much sense when you try and think of putting Swims into a defined box, because he just doesn’t fit the mold. Which is a very good thing. “No, I feel like… it’s weirder to know that other people have a different perspective or upbringing than you,” Teddy expressed. “You know, you always feel like people are the same… you're the center of your own experience, right? Like you're the lead role in your own movie, right? So like, I just never, you never realize other people are different until you get older to realize other people's expectations. When you're a kid, you're like, we're all doing this, right? I thought everybody was.” “It all felt natural to be who I was," Teddy eventually went on to note. “I don't know, I didn't know that people were living different lives, you know?” As Mike brought up, before Teddy's meteoric rise, like many other artists do during their come up, he posted covers on YouTube. Noting he has opinions about covers that outshine the originals, pointing out Whitney Houston’s rendition of “Higher Love,” Mike asked Teddy if he feels that way about any of his covers. “None of them, everybody hates themselves a little bit," Teddy quipped, “like none of mine are as good as that.” That being said he did have some strong feelings about Jimmy Hendrix owning the cover of Bob Dylan’s “All Along The Watchtower.” Noting, “Bob Dylan even retired that song… he was like, that's Jimmy's song." Teddy also shouted out Tank’s rendition of Bonnie Raitt’s “I Can't Mak ...

Ahead of the release of their new single “Who Believes In Angels?,” the title track from their just-announced collaborative album set for release on April 4, Audacy host Mike Adam got a chance to speak with Brandi Carlile and Elton John about how this amazing joint venture came to be. Although The Who’s Pete Townshend spilled the beans on this project last summer, Elton tells us, “I just forgot about it, and I think most people forgot about it… I didn't scold him. I love Pete. He's one of my dearest friends, so…” “I didn't forget about it, I loved it!” adds Brandi. Expanding on what Townshend revealed was a lightning-fast recording process, Elton says, “We went in with nothing and came out three weeks later with fourteen songs, ten of which make the album. I had a lot of doubt making this record and I was tired, I was irritable, and the first four or five days were really kind of powder keg time. But once we got past that, It was just plain sailing. It was just brilliant.” “The lyrics that we got from Bernie [Taupin] and Brandi were so amazing, Andrew Watt, the producer,” he adds, giving all of his collaborators their flowers. “The four people involved in this whole project, and it was very much a team effort.” “All the lyrics I got were amazing, and they were so easy to write to,” Elton continues. “When you get great lyrics, I write very quickly. So, Brandi's lyrics and Bernard's lyrics were so good that the songs came together really quickly. We had a great band, we had Chad [Smith] from the [Red Hot] Chili Peppers on drums, and we had, Pino Palladino on bass, and we had Josh Klinghoffer from the Chili Peppers on synth, and Andrew Watt on guitar with Brandi.” “And Elton on piano,” Brandi chimed in accordingly. “It was one of the most enjoyable, incredibly quick albums I've ever made. It was wonderful,” John explained. “The energy in the room, it was electric. You could get an electric shock if you touched the wall!” Agreeing that there was some rough water to tread when first coming together, Brandi says, “We pretty much saw eye to eye after that first few days, everything clicked. We just really inspire each other and we didn't know for sure… We knew we loved each other and then we had this great friendship, but I didn't know if we would inspire each other, so it was really scary in the beginning, but we really did. And then everything from the beginning to the end was mostly smooth sailing, and we just tend to acquiesce toward one another, I think as artists in general.” Fans will be happy to hear that there is a full visual aspect to this new album as well. “We filmed every song being written, we filmed every song being recorded,” Elton tells us. “We had nine cameras on the go all the time. Eventually, you'll be able to see the shenanigans that went on at the beginning of the album, which weren't pretty, but it was necessary for the sparks to fly at the beginning, mostly from me, to get that energy going, and boy was that energy in that room when we got going. It was fantastic!” “The best part of the cameras was, I never saw one,” Brandi adds. “They were fixed, so I didn't know where they were and we were forgetting about them all the time. So, it's not as if there was a person standing there with a camera. We forgot, and our behavior reflects that!” Obviously, keeping the cat in the bag around such a massive collaboration was going to be tough. Though Elton admits he “didn't play it to many people,” Brandi reminded him that he did give Kate Bush an early listen, and of course, Pete Townshend. Brandi says she played it recently for Bon Iver, and Aaron Dessner of The National, “and the looks on their faces were just, you can't fake loving an album that much,” she says. “So, we know we've done a really special thing, we're really excited.” “It’s just incredibly life-affirming to me,” Brandi adds. “ ...

Superstar singer/songwriter Kane Brown joins host Mike Adam this week for a special Audacy Check In from the Hard Rock Hotel New York, to discuss his brand new album, ‘The High Road,’ family life as a father of three, and plenty more. Country-crossover superstar Kane Brown just dropped his fourth studio album, 'The High Road,' on January 24, featuring 18 tracks including his hit “Miles On It” with Marshmello, as well as the previously released singles, “Fiddle In the Band,” “I Can Feel It,” “Gorgeous,” and "Backseat Driver," and the duets “Body Talk" and "Do Us Apart" with his wife, Katelyn Brown. “I think Country music is just getting a lot of cool, new elements to the music that's getting added,” Kane tells us, “plus the storytelling. There's a lot of cool artists in Country music that's really stepping out, I'd say.” Now a proud father of three, Kane says aside from 'The High Road,' his kids “will listen to anything. I would say recently, it's been like Dubstep ‘Wheels on the Bus,’ and when that comes on, I usually go crazy too.” His wife, Katelyn, is “a huge R&B fan,” he adds, so the little ones have been getting exposed to “big voices in general… Whitney Houston, anybody with a crazy big voice is what she's trying to get them to listen to… and then of course the Disney princesses.” Kane says he and Katelyn are also attempting to get the kids to watch the classic flicks they grew up with as well. “I'll be like, ‘This was daddy's favorite movie,’ and then Kate will show them her favorite movies. The funniest story I have is, Kate's deathly afraid of ‘E.T.,’ and so I told my kids about ‘E.T.,’ and so now they love ‘E.T.’ and they've just been walking around going, ‘E.T. phone home!’” Luckily for everyone, play-dates in the Kane household never seem to be too far off. “[In] Country music, everybody has a kid,” Kane laughs. “It’s just a big family.” With his new record now on shelves, Kane is getting set to hit the road on his 2025 'The High Road Tour' which kicks off on March 13 in San Diego, CA and wraps on July 13 in Chicago, IL. Along for support on select dates with him will be Mitchell Tenpenny, Scotty McCreery, Dasha, and Ashley Cooke. Tickets are on sale now... Click HERE for a full list of tour dates. Don't miss Mike Adam's full Check In with Kane Brown above, and stay tuned for more conversations with your favorite artists right here on Audacy. Plus, follow along with Kane Brown Radio and more on the free Audacy app. Words by Joe Cingrana, Interview by Mike Adam

Shinedown frontman Brent Smith joins host Abe Kanan today for a special Audacy Check In, filling us in on the band's 2025 plans, including their upcoming live dates scheduled for this spring alongside Bush and Beartooth, and their double dose of brand new singles released today (1/24) -- "Dance Kid Dance," and "Three Six Five." Shinedown is kicking off the new year with new music and an impressive touring itinerary, after just revealing their 30-city Dance, Kid, Dance Tour -- featuring guests Bush on the summer dates and Beartooth in the spring -- scheduled to make stops in most major markets including Boston, Detroit, Nashville, New York, Seattle, Atlanta, and more before wrapping up at the end of August. First touching on the two new tracks the band just offered up, “Three Six Five” Brent tells us, “We kind of felt like it definitely had a bit more tempo than maybe the last song that people were familiar with -- maybe the more mainstream leaning, Pop leaning-type songs. So, we kind of bumped up the BPMs a little bit on that. And ‘Dance Kid, Dance,’ we just went to the wall with that.” “It's interesting,” he explains. “I had a friend of mine the other day say to me, ‘Are you a rock band? Are you a metal band? Are you an Alternative band? Are you a Pop… what are you?’ And I'm like, ‘We're just Shinedown.' We play in a big sandbox. We've always been a genre-bending band, because we're inspired by a lot of different styles and we're constantly evolving. We felt like the right move with the first new material that people would hear from us, that we gave them two sides of us.” “I think along the way people started to get pigeonholed,” Smith adds, “or they started using boxes, or ‘stay in your lane,’ or you know… ‘You're only this genre.’ When you expand your palette, sonically or what have you, you're just trying to reach as much of the audience as you can. Some days you feel like you want to throw down and rock, some days you're a little bit more emotional, but that's the beauty of music, man. It constantly evolves and the only thing that we've ever done in this band is, anybody from anywhere at any time we wanted them to be able to know that Shinedown has a lot of peaks and valleys -- kind of like a roller coaster ride, but there's something for everyone.” As the band gets ready to hit the road on their 2025 Dance, Kid, Dance Tour, Brent, obviously a fan of their tour partners Bush growing up, revealed that he had recently been on a call with frontman Gavin Rossdale “just kind of reintroducing ourselves to one another. We met a while back and we really hadn't had a chance to connect, but I got to give a lot of credit to Zach Myers and Shinedown for Bush coming on this tour. He really was like, ‘Man, it would be amazing if we could get them for this!’ And then obviously having who we think is the epitome of the fearless female outlaw, Morgan Wade, is coming out on this tour as well, so there's a lot of diversity. But Bush specifically, having a 30-year anniversary for ‘Sixteen Stone,’ also I think the 20-year for ‘Razorblade Suitcase.’ I might be getting those confused, but they have this kind of nostalgia era coming into their new record where there's still this band that is very much very current, and they they're just a force to be reckoned with.” Making their way back to the new releases, “There's so much wrapped up,” Brent says in “Three Six Five” -- “That one really took hold very quickly. There was a lot of loss last year, personally in our families, and friends of ours that it was their time, and none of us know when it's our time. Our fanbase over the years have really talked about how our music and the songs that we write really helped them at times when they're going through difficulty with what their daily lives can be and how Shinedown is kind of like a security blanket in a way.” “It's very emotional when I think about it, but we've always bee ...

Joining host Abe Kanan for a special Audacy Check In is Papa Roach frontman Jacoby Shaddix, giving us details on what's next for the group as they kick off their 'INFEST' 25th anniversary worldwide celebrations with brand new music. Papa Roach is currently on the U.K. and European leg of their worldwide 'Rise Of The Roach Tour' alongside Rise Against, celebrating the 25th anniversary of their iconic breakthrough album 'INFEST' -- and the band just dropped their first new single of 2025, "Even If It Kills Me." The band's 2023 ballad "Leave A Light On," made in collaboration with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) for their 'Talk Away the Dark' campaign was a major accomplishment, "one of the big ones for us," Shaddix tells us. “’Scars’ was another one that was really big for us. ‘Scars’ went multi-format as well, but yeah, man, ‘Leave A Light On’ has been one of the biggest ones in years for us… and it's purpose-driven music. But you know, when we zig, then we gotta zag -- this is the perfect zag.” “It's just got such a cinematic feel to it, and it's just got the big riffs that we are known for, and it's got a hooky chorus,” Shaddix explains of the new track. “I really love the chorus, and it's just one of those songs that when I heard the demo, when the band wrote the music, I just instantly picked up the phone, I called Tobin [Esperance] and I'm like, ‘Dude… I don't even have to think twice on this one, it's go time on this track.’ When we land on those moments, when we're making music, when I just know there's an inner-knowing, there's something magic in that and it always sets a tone for what's to come and what we're gonna write after that.” “We kicked it off with this one and it just was so inspired. It was the first song that we wrote after we had been touring on our last album, ‘Ego Trip,’ and it was the first one that we went back into the studio,” Jacoby adds. At that point, the decision was made: “'Let's start writing music again,'” he says. “It seems like when we've kind of been out there working and playing songs live, and been out on tour, and hadn't been writing new music in a while… the levee breaks, you know, and that's what happened when we wrote that song -- and we're so proud of it. Just wait till you see the music video for this one ‘cause it's leaps and bounds levels up of what we've done lately with our music videos, and I'm so excited about this one.” As far as a new album on the way, Shaddix tells us the band had been working in the studio throughout 2024 on a bunch of music, “and we have songs in a lot of different states. There's songs that are completely finished, we have other songs that are like verses and choruses, and we gotta write maybe a bridge or get back there and kind of retweak them and work them. There's another couple songs that are just like acoustic guitar and vocal, and it's like, ‘All right, this one's gonna be a banger. We just gotta go in there and like ‘bandify’ the song. So, we have a ton of material demoed out. Throughout this year, we're just gonna keep jumping back into the studio and finishing up those pieces.” Jacoby says rather than drop everything at once, he’d prefer to release music throughout the year. “It's going to lead up to an album eventually, whether it's the end of 2025 or early 2026,” he says. “There will be a new Papa Roach album… the music we're making right now is very inspired and it's got us all pumped up. When you go back in the studio, you just don't know what's gonna come, and after we wrote ‘Even If It Kills Me,’ I'm just like, ‘Oh. It's on! Let's go!’” Now celebrating 25 years since their debut album 'INFEST,' and three decades together as a group, “We have definitely come a long way since 1993,” Jacoby admits. “Over the last six months I've kind of been diving back into the old, early releases of Papa Roach ‘cause I just was doing some purging of things from my h ...

Joining host Mike Adam today for a special Audacy Check In, Michael Bublé discusses his big win on this season's 'The Voice,' his brand new holiday duet "Maybe This Christmas" with Carly Pearce, and more. We're just days away from Christmas, a perfect time to sit down with singer Michael Bublé who is such a huge admirer of this festive season, and right when he's got a brand new holiday song as well, while still reeling from his big win on 'The Voice.' “It wasn't what I expected, honestly… It was like 50 times better than I expected,” he says of his experience on 'The Voice.' “I spent most of my morning on the phone with Snoop [Dogg] and writing Gwen [Stefani] and Reba [McEntire], and just talking about how much we appreciate each other. And I've been on with the artists, not just the one who won, but you know, others too, and it's been an incredible thing, man. I don't know if there's anything that's more fulfilling than to be able to give back in that way.” “I think for us that we're coaches in the chairs -- I know it sounds weird for people -- but it wasn't that long ago when we were in the positions of those kids,” he adds. "Hearing ‘No,’ and feeling the crush of disappointment. I think it just really meant something for us to be able to know that we've been really lucky to live out our dream, and now we have this chance to help other people see that through. It's a very cool thing… there's nothing negative about any of it.” “By the way, I got calls all through the day from Kelsea Ballerini and John Legend and Adam Levine, all of them being so sweet with me and teasing me at the same time,” Michael says of the overwhelming support he received from his fellow coaches. “Adam was saying to me last night, he's like, ‘Oh my God, we're never gonna hear the end of this are we?!’” Looking back on his own career, he says there was never just one emphatic "Yes" that made him continue to strive to break into the music industry. “It starts with mom and dad, and grandparents, and your sisters, and the kids that are your best buddies growing up. There's all these people that love you, and there's nothing in it for them. It's not like they're investing and they're getting something back. They do it because they love you and because they see your passion and they see that you're excited -- so it took a million people.” “I always call it ‘the domino effect,’” he adds. “It took people that love me, it took strangers, it took people to really give of themselves and exactly what I'm talking about when I talk about ‘The Voice’ and that experience. People that just loved me and just said, ‘You know what, I want this to happen for you, not because it's doing anything for me, but because it feels good.’ My grandfather, he would take me to every audition, and he sat with me at shopping malls and busking. And of course, my mom and dad, my sisters would help me sell all my theaters. Man, just so many beautiful souls that loved me.” Michael and Country star Carly Pearce teamed up on the new holiday track "Maybe This Christmas," released just before Thanksgiving with the help of producer Greg Wells. Just last week, Carly stopped by 'The Voice' finale to perform the single with Michael, and on December 15 joined him to perform the song again during his Grand Ole Opry debut. The song , he says, “was inspired by real life circumstances that I've gone through with a really great friend I grew up with who, you know, through just a bunch of strange little circumstances and through mental health and stuff that so many of us deal with. It started by me knowing that he had lost his way, and that he had found himself in a bad way on the street, and I helped him off, and got him counseling, and I wrote a song about how it felt when, last winter I had found out. I just realized that this holiday is so hard for so many people. As much as for me, it's beautiful -- it's my kids, and S ...

You might not know it, but Amy Allen’s songs have been stuck in your head all year. With songwriting credits on tracks like Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso,” “Please Please Please,” and “Taste,” and actually every other 'Short n’ Sweet' track, as well as Tate McRae’s new single “Two Hands,” Olivia Rodrigo’s “scared of my guitar,” and Justin Timberlake’s “Selfish,” just to name a few, Amy has had an undeniably massive year, and she checked it with Audacy's Bru to chat all about. Recapping how 2024 has been for her, and what it’s been like to write songs so many people have positively responded to, Amy expressed, “It has been insane, but it's been very fun. And I've gotten to travel a lot for work this year, which has been amazing and really inspiring to be in so many different locations and writing there with friends and collaborators that I love. It's just always like a cherry on top to be able to make music that you love and then also have the world react to it in a positive way, and other people love it as well.” On top of all her success with songwriting, Amy also dropped her solo self-titled debut album this year. Opening up about her own personal sound, Amy noted, “I grew up on a lot of Classic Rock and then also being a child of the 90s, I fell in love with like Flaming Lips and then for songwriters, I've always loved Dolly Parton and John Prine, so it's very singer-songwritery. But it also has some more Rock elements and then it also goes a little bit into experimental like some electronic bits. But I think the storytelling is like… the heart of music for me and what I love to do the most.” Sharing why now felt like the right time to put out music of her own, Amy said, “I always had been in bands growing up, like ever since I was 9 years old… And then when I started writing for other people like 7 years ago, I really fell in love with the collaboration process and making songs for and with other artists. So my own music kind of went on the back burner as I made this conscious decision to get better at songwriting. And then I think last year at some point I just realized that it makes me a better songwriter for other people to keep writing for myself.” “I had just accumulated this like body of work of songs that I loved and they felt really poignant to me, and like an artist statement kind of, and I never really felt like that about a body of work of my own before. So I just felt like, you know, why the f*** not, like just go for it.” “I love these songs,” Amy added, “and I think it's important for me as a creative to not only be giving my love of music away to other artists all the time, but also to make some just for myself. It keeps me grounded and why I do this. So yeah, it was a very cathartic fun process.” Amy shared that nerves weren’t really present in the choice of putting out her own work, because she took all the pressure off of it. Unlike when she works with other artists that have massive profiles and this expected response to a lot of the songs, when it comes to her own music, that’s not what Amy expects. Plus, having her co-written tracks become smash hits, heard on the radio and all over the world, is already fulfilling that part of her life. “So I can totally kind of remove any type of response from my own music that I make for myself, because I already have that part being fulfilled by songs I write with other people.” So putting emphasis on how it's received, "nerves didn’t play much into it." “It felt good to just put out something that I like and be like… it doesn't matter if anybody besides my mom streams this song… So it was a very freeing place to be creating, and it just makes me a better songwriter all around.” Her five 2025 GRAMMY nominations including Song of the Year for “Please Please Please," Songwriter of the Year, Album of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Album for her work on 'Short n’ Sweet,' plus a nod for Song Wri ...

Joining host Abe Kanan today for a special Audacy Check In, Neil Sanderson of Three Days Grace is here to talk about the band's brand new single "Mayday," their 2024/2025 plans after reuniting with singer Adam Gontier, and more. After first teasing fans that an important announcement was on the way, Canadian rockers Three Days Grace revealed they would be reuniting with original vocalist Adam Gontier following a decade away along with co-founders Neil Sanderson on drums, Brad Walst on bass, Matt Walst continuing his vocal and guitar duties, and lead guitarist Barry Stock who joined the band in 2003. Today, fans get the first taste of what's on the 3DG horizon with their first single of 2024, "Mayday." "Sometimes life is turbulent," Matt Walst told us of the new song's inspiration, "but beyond the clouds is blue skies. So, just keep going." “First of all, I feel just gratitude for being at this point in my career,” Neil tells Abe at the start of their chat. “We've been doing this almost 25 years, and just to have so much excitement about the new music and, you know, we were able to pull this off, put it together, all good vibes. We don't look back, we only look forward and it's gonna be just bigger and better than it's ever been at this point. I'm in my 40s… it's like, ‘Damn, let's go!’” With Adam back in the band, 3DG will now have dual singers he explains. “It's kind of crazy to think that we have this huge chapter with Adam and then this massive chapter with Matt and with like 17 number 1 singles thanks to people like you and people that care about the music and the fans… We've got all these songs that were really successful at Rock radio and now we can just play them all any way that we want. I have envy for the singers, because they only have to sing half the show. I still got to play drums the whole damn time." On the new single, “Mayday,” both singers are featured. “At first it was like we didn't know how we were gonna kind of like slice it all up and who was going to do what,” Neil remembers, “as we first started sitting down and writing new stuff and trying things out and experimenting. As soon as each guy kind of laid their thing in, it was like, ‘Oh man, this is deeper than we would have thought. We played to each singer's strengths and they didn't try to be anything that they're not. It just creates this completely new dynamic, a new facet to the sound.” “I did see them at one point, like rock-paper-scissors to see who's going to sing the next line, which was kind of funny, but that's how naturally organic it happened,” he adds. “It wasn't forced at all. We started thinking about bands like Pink Floyd back in the day that had two singers and they were both completely different characters with different voices -- but that's part of the magic with it. So, we just really leaned into that.” The impetus to get Adam back in the band he says started with simple conversations. “A lot of the stuff on the Internet over the years is like all this bad blood and stuff, and I think a lot of people made that up in their mental cinema… We were kind of like, ‘Stuff happens.’ The thing about being in a band is, it's like being in a marriage with three other people. So things happen, people go different ways, people have different life directions and stuff. 13 years ago, we kind of came to a crossroads where that became a major factor, but all this time later, it just made sense to investigate what it would be like to make this thing that would be bigger than better than anything we've ever done.” After performing guest vocals with them at a concert and seeing the crowd’s reaction, “We're like, ‘Let's sit around with some guitars and see if we can be creative together because that was the only thing that mattered,” he says. “We need to be able to vibe out; it's like we could pull a stunt or something, but that that's not what we wanted to do. He’s coming ba ...

Joining host Kevan Kenney for a special Audacy Check In on the release day of their 2024 comeback album, FROM ZERO, the members of Linkin Park are with us to talk about the brand new record, upcoming world tour, and more. Mike Shinoda, Dave “Phoenix” Farrell, Joe Hahn, and Emily Armstrong join KROQ host Kevan Kenney today while currently in Bogota, Colombia celebrating the release of Linkin Park's 2024 album, FROM ZERO, and bringing their brand new live show to all corners of the globe. “It's very rare to play a new spot and it came up somehow on maybe Twitter or somewhere, but the last time we had played a new show I think was in Hungary on maybe the last tour cycle,” Phoenix tells us. “But it seems like these days there's one or two new cities or new countries per cycle that we get to see for the first time. It's always a good time.” Finally getting to this point, Mike Shinoda says was a complicated process, “For me, two years ago, it was very overwhelming and I think the best thing that we did was to just basically let things happen in the order and at the timeline that they were gonna happen -- let things happen organically and not push too hard. And I feel like what ended up evolving was we just naturally kind of found each other. We found this new line up, we found [singer] Emily [Armstrong] and [drummer] Colin [Brittain] in particular, and the music just kind of came into focus based on what we were having the most fun doing.” Giving off a smile when Kevan said it felt like the band was getting back to its “roots,” Mike explains, “I love that there's such a strong Linkin Park DNA in the record -- it does really feel like Linkin Park -- but I think there's a part of it that's the old sound, and part of it that's every era of the band, to me, on the record.” “I don't know if I know well, what the Linkin Park DNA is,” Phoenix admits. “It's kind of like when you're too close to something, you just do it, and then other people tell you, they almost interpret it, and then you kind of say, ‘OK, cool, I'm glad that came across.’ But I think in any and all of that creation of an album, or working on new music, or new stuff, or when there's, I don't know ‘interstitials’ or whatever you might want to call it… for me, those things are just us doing us, figuring that out, and moving forward." "In this process," he adds, "one of the things that was so fun and rewarding and cool and energizing was just how, when we started gradually integrating Emily and Colin, it felt like Linkin Park. It just felt like it fit for me and for us, and those were the coolest moments in the entire process. Just feeling like things were kind of gelling and coming together, and we're having a blast doing it the whole time. So, at this stage being ready to finally have the album out, having people be excited about it, that feels great.” Don't miss Kevan Kenney's full Check In with Linkin Park above, and stay tuned for more conversations with your favorite artists right here on Audacy. Words By Joe Cingrana, Interview by Kevan Kenney

Joining host Abe Kanan today for a special Audacy Check In is Breaking Benjamin's Benjamin Burnley – along with his son Ben Jr. -- giving us details about the band's brand new music, upcoming album plans, and plenty more. Although Breaking Benjamin has not dropped a full length since 2018's 'Ember,' the longest span of time they have had in between albums, they have kept themselves quite busy in the meantime. The band just wrapped up their most recent co-headlining tour with Staind and special guest Daughtry, and at the start of the month released their brand new single "Awaken," which landed at the top of several Billboard charts. Before discussing new music, Abe wanted to know from Ben Jr. what it’s like having a mega rockstar dad who performs in front of tens of thousands of people at his concerts each night. “It's like something special to me because, you know, I play on stage. I entertain like thousands of people and I'm grateful for that,” he tells us. “Every time he's with me, he plays on stage with us,” Ben’s dad explains. “And also too, I want to mention, for real, the last chorus of ‘Awaken,’ there's like a pad vocal that's going on in the background and he's singing that. So, he's singing on the record. Yeah, he's singing on that song.” Giving us a taste of the raw audio featuring his son, Ben proudly says, “Not many people know, but, I mean, I'm kind of just spreading the word that he's singing on that track.” The new single’s runaway success has, in a way, passed Burnley by since the band has been busy on the road since its release earlier this month. “I had no idea,” he tells us, “because I'm out on tour and just doing my thing out here. We have so much going on during the day… I haven't really checked in. I didn't know it was doing so well. I'm very, very thankful and grateful for that.” “Our day to day out here on tour, we do a meet and greet and then we do the concert and we're not really, because we're traveling so much -- today is the last day of the tour -- the only kind of interaction that we get with actual people is at our meet and greet,” Ben explains. “So, we've gotten some good reactions from that and out here on tour, in the wild, that's really the only gauge that we get, because the rest of the day is stuff like this and the concert.” The positive reaction he admits is “definitely gonna give us a little bit of a pep in our step,” to finish the rest of the album, “but we are already the type of band that we're going to give it our all no matter what,” he says. “That's what's taking so long… that and COVID.” Taking his time writing music during what he considers such an uninspiring period, felt like the best course of action, he believes. “Everybody has a different personality, everybody works best under different conditions, and I'm just the type that I can have the negativity of COVID and all of that be turned into a positive thing. But I'm the type that it has to be after it's over and I reflect on it, not while I'm in it -- and that's like with anything. Like, if something bad happens and I'm hurting or whatever the case may be or even if I'm happy it has to be at a time, which is weird, I guess, but it has to be at a time when that's over and I'm looking back on it, not during. I'm too busy going through it during.” Looking back now as a major headliner, Ben still remembers the early days quite fondly, playing at 11AM when the festival gates officially opened. “Yeah, I'm kind of surprised we're not doing that,” he says humbly. “I'm surprised we're not playing 11 o'clock. I'm really grateful that we're where we are, but I definitely do. I was just talking about that recently, you know how we've all been there, we've all done that. We all do the same things out here, and every step of the way is its own fun, its own allure, because I miss those days kind of in a way, because the climb, you know, the climb is fun. Reaching thin ...

Back on the music scene with three new solo singles, “Rockstar,” “New Woman” featuring Rosalía, and the latest “Moonlit Floor,” LISA checked in with Audacy’s Mike Adam at the Hard Rock Hotel New York to chat all about the new tracks, who's on her collab wish list, and what’s next. LISA’s latest trio of singles, away from BLACKPINK, follows her first solo project, LALISA, a two-song set released in 2021 featuring title tune “LALISA,” and fan favorite “MONEY.” Delving right it, Mike started the conversation discussing LISA’s latest single “Moonlit Floor,” asking her if she was familiar with the Sixpence None The Richer song “Kiss Me,” before she sampled it in the song. “Yeah, actually I remember when I was young, I don't know, five or six, my dad always played that in a car,” LISA recalled. “So I [was] kind of familiar with that song.” Already stacking up an impressive list of collaborators like Ryan Tedder, Max Martin, and Rosalía with the three tracks she’s released thus far, LISA revealed she has a wish list of “a lot” more rockstars she’d love to work with, but at the moment, at the top of that list is Doja Cat. Sharing some things she’s learned and picked up from the people that she’s worked with, LISA expressed, “when I did a music video with Rosalía… I learned something from her. She's amazing, she’s a professional, like every single take, that like action, she's just doing her thing. So I learned that confidence and identity, she just maintains her identity with her music, with her art and everything. So, yeah, I wanted to be someone like her that can maintain my identity.” With dancing being such a big part of her career, LISA also shared a bit about starting dance lessons at the young age of four or five. Recalling her first day at dance school, which her mom dressed her for in a skirt, LISA said, “I just went in and they just tell me to kick… and I was like, I'm in the miniskirt.” Noting, that dancing was something she had a great passion for and worked really hard on, “because I love it,” and “want to be good,” LISA went on to say, “I improved a lot when I moved to Korea, when they give me like intense dance lessons.” Especially through the power of repetition. “I just keep repeating it until my body memorize it." Also discussing how she has the rights to her solo music, which Mike rightfully acknowledged is “just huge,” LISA concurred, saying, “I’m just so lucky, to have that on my own, I'm just so thankful… I’m so lucky.” In addition to new music, also on the horizon, the K-Pop star is set to make her acting debut in season 3 of the hit HBO anthology, 'The White Lotus.' And while she didn’t share any scoop about the super secretive series that’s set to hit the small screen in 2025, she did share that she reached out to friends like band member Jennie, who also starred in an HBO series — 'The Idol,' for some guidance. “Yeah, I actually asked, like how do you memorize all the lines? Revealing the slightly unimaginative, but still helpful advice she received was, “you just memorize it.” To catch the entire conversation, check out LISA's entire interview above. Words by Maia Kedem Interview by Mike Adam

She’s an icon, she’s a legend, she is Kylie Minogue, and she checked in with Audacy’s Mike Adam at the Hard Rock Hotel in New York to chat all about her new album, Tension II, her upcoming TENSION Tour, and more. From putting together her setlist to touring North America again, while gaining new fans, and reflecting on the days of cassettes and CDs -- Kylie covers it all. Starting off expressing her excitement to be touring in North America after “too, too, too long,” Kylie admitted that putting together the setlist for, as Mike put it, “a show of this magnitude,” currently “lives rent free” in her head. “Obviously it’s the TENSION Tour, so we're going to have songs from 'Tension' and 'Tension II,' even 'Disco,' my previous album I didn't get to tour,” Kylie noted. "But," she added with a smile, “we’re going to serve you ‘Can’t Get You Out of My Head,’ and ‘All The Lovers,’ and even take you back to ‘Locomotion.’” Pointing out how Kylie’s influence spans generations, Mike mentioned how “it's gotta be mind-blowing,” to have songs on the setlist like ‘Locomotion’ that have “the eighties babies dancing,” but also have a song like ‘Padam Padam’ that has their kids’ heart rates rising, Mike asks Kylie if she expects her shows to be a family affair. “I'm so glad that you've recognized that,” Kylie responded, adding, how “because that’s been… such a buzz. That the OGs fans that have been around… they’re having a blast. And then the newer fans, new people who come to the Kylie party… I know they've been introduced, a lot of them with ‘Padam Padam’ or 'Tension,' whatever -- but they lose their minds over ‘Locomotion,’ which is just brilliant. So it means I can encompass the scope of my career, which is over five decades.” When asked if there is a key to longevity in this crazy business, Kylie expressed, “There's a few things that definitely count,” listing them off, “persistence, tenacity, passion, luck.” Noting he’s nostalgic about the long-ago days of cassettes and CDs, “when you would find the secret song at the end when you would just let the final track play.” Mike asked Kylie if there was anything she missed about the industry, from when she was first getting into it. “Just the thrill of, you had to make the effort, go to the shop… that was like your kind of own private Idaho is to have put that record on, "Or, have to argue with your brother and sister, like, ‘what are we playing?’, Kylie answered. Also noting that “until I got a Walkman… You didn't have music on the move. So, I guess I can be nostalgic about all of that, but cut to now and it's great to go, ‘What do I want to listen to? What's new?' So much has changed.” Talking about the changes she’s seen for women in the industry since her start, Kylie expressed, “It’s very encouraging that I'm proof, I'm sat here,” ...

It’s been eight years since Grace VanderWaal was the bashful 12-year-old girl who wowed and won America’s Got Talent with her ukulele playing and textured, breathy vocals. Now 20 and all grown up, Grace is back with brand new music and a scandalous Megalopolis role, and she’s checking in with Audacy’s Bru to chat about it all. Despite some admitted “ups and downs” throughout 2024 thus far, Grace told Bru she currently feels “like I have some strong footing right now, I feel very confident in what we're brewing up.” Newly signed to Pulse Records, Grace shared a bit of insight into some of the changes this year brought, that had her feeling those “ups and downs.” Starting off with a positive, Grace admitted the decision to sign with Pulse has been “the best thing that ever happened to me.” Going on to note, “There were so many things that happened that was like so destined and just me writing ‘What's Left of Me,’ and then Columbia dropping me, and got rid of everyone around me,” which she admitted, “wasn't planned.” “I was already getting rid of everyone around me,” she continued, “and then I got that call and they were like, ‘oh you can't have any of the music that you've made in this long time.’” Which Grace revealed was around “40 songs.” Feeling determined to rise above, Grace decided, “I’m going to f***ing write an album, I'm going to write an album and I'm going to do this right… the way that I knew it always should be.” Comparing the way things went down to a bad relationship that you’re being gaslit about, Grace expressed, “I feel like every single day for the past six months, at least once a day, I'm like, ‘I f***ing knew it was real. I knew it was real, and I'm doing it right now, and I knew that people could work like that.'” Feeling invigorated in this new chapter, Grace confessed, “I was so afraid of change for a really, really long time because I've been doing this for so long,” so much so that the people she surrounded herself with evolved to feel more like family, “like I've known you since I was like 12 years old.” “So you can feel so trapped and stuck… but I knew that a change needed to happen because things weren't really working. Also my personal life was weirdly exactly mirroring this as well," Grace added, “like the similar parallel of things are going wrong because I can't let go of things and staying in places for the mere fact of staying there, but not for any other benefits.” Deciding to “pull the trigger,” and make a change, “five great things happened,” and she realized, “good things are happening when I do that,” and she understood it was time to let go. Delving into those exciting things she’s got brewing, which includes that album she ment ...

Joining Bru for an Audacy Check In, Gwen Stefani is here to fill us in on her forthcoming album Bouquet. From finding the right sound, to feeling inspired by the “group of amazing songwriters” she worked with, the “spiritual” recording process, and more. Following Bru wishing Gwen a happy belated birthday, (it's October 3), Stefani shared some deets about this year’s memorable celebration, after feeling a bit lonely during her birthday last year. “A year ago… I had a show in Hawaii on my birthday and I was like, oh, yeah, I'll go get a little pile of money and come home and I don't care about my birthday.” However, as Gwen revealed, “I went on my own and I, like, spiraled into this like place. I was like, everybody needs to have a birthday I think like a celebration.” That being said, something good came out of it. “I ended up writing this song called ‘Swallow My Tears,’ which is on the new record,” Gwen offered. “But this birthday, I was like, OK, no, we got to do something,” she continued, sharing all about the Colorado trip her hubby Blake Shelton took her family on. With Gwen’s upcoming fifth studio album, Bouquet, set to drop on November 15, the singer shared her current emotional state about everything as a whole, saying, “I feel so grateful… it was one of those like… all I can do is look back at all of the whole career and be like, wow, how did that happen?” After 2020, Gwen felt the want to start writing again, but also felt that she had so many things going on. “I'm a mom… I felt guilty to even go to the studio and try to write music because a lot of times you go and nothing happens,” Gwen shared. “But I started working on it and I think I went down like a lot of like, weird cul-de-sacs musically, because I didn't really know what I wanted to be or who I was. I was trying to chase the old me like, okay, I want to do reggae or I'm gonna do this, and nothing was landing.” After a few failed attempts, and less than stellar reviews when she’d play the material for people, Gwen came to the realization that, “it really just comes down to, you have to like it, you as the person doing it.” “I wanted to always be real and truthful and honest and I just had to find that real honest place.” Noting it also has a lot to do with “the people that I actually end up writing the songs with, like finding the right chemistry, the right everything to make it all come together.” “Once I wrote ‘Purple Irises’… that was like, finally, okay, I landed in the spot, and then the record kind of happened pretty quick after that.” Discussing the sound she landed on for the album, Gwen said, “I knew I wanted to make something that I wanted to listen to. The older I get, the more I go back to the songs that I grew up with as a kid. Which I think we kind of call it yacht-rock now, but ...

Hozier joined host Bru backstage at the Kia Forum in Los Angeles for a special Audacy Check In while on his 2024 Unreal Unearth Tour, revealing he's ready to get back into creative mode once his overseas dates wrap up. Currently taking a break at home before bringing his show to Australia and New Zealand to wrap things up by the end of November, Hozier tells us the tour so far has been “super rewarding… the crowds have been amazing,” especially after releasing brand new music while out on the road. Now a decade since the release of his first album, Hozier finds it funny how he doesn’t seem to have felt that time went by very quickly. “It's so weird,” he admits, “maybe 6 to 7 years of that was me on the road, or promoting, or touring or something, and life on the road kind of becomes this blur -- it feels like no time passes and it feels like a lifetime as well.” Once the tour wraps overseas, Hozier is “super eager to get back creating. I really enjoyed making the last record,” he says of 2023’s Unreal Earth. “I'm kind of at that point now where I'm hungry again to have space and time to think about new music, and I've pretty much emptied all of my pockets now at this point… I'm kind of hungry to feel my way through new work again.” “We start fresh,” he adds, revealing he does have some tracks from previous writing sessions that will never see the light of day. “Everything that I felt like, ‘this nearly made the record, that this could have made the album, or if we'd finished it in time, or this was battling out for another song,’ I feel really glad that I've released a lot of that after-work, or work that didn't make the album proper. That's been super-rewarding, but yeah, I'm just at the end of that.” Choosing which songs make it onto a release can be “like picking which children go on the right boat,” he admits. His latest hit "Too Sweet," is just one example of a track that almost didn't make the cut on his 2024 Unheard EP. “It can be tough. There's ones that you really feel so close to and you feel very protective of certain songs -- you really want them to see the light of day because they mean so much to you," he adds. "Everybody has their favorites; Your producer or the team that you work with are gonna have their thoughts, you have your thoughts… it's a whole process.” Hozier also got a chance to work with Noah Kahan recently on his “Northern Attitude,” and aside from sharing incredible songwriting prowess and similar luscious locks a beard, Hozier joked that they also share fashion senses. “Noah's amazing and he's having such an incredible couple of years, and this wild kind of hurricane is going on around him. He's so cool, he's so grounded, he's just so down to earth. He's a really nice guy as well too, and he carries it very lightly. Jumping on ‘Northern Attitude,’” he adds, “I remember first hearing that song before they'd reached out, I f***ing loved that track and was so delighted to hop on.” Don’t miss Bru’s full Audacy Check In with Hozier above -- and stay tuned for more conversations with your favorite artists on Audacy.com/Live. Words by Joe Cingrana Interview by Bru

On the heels of releasing “It’s ok I’m ok,” her latest hit in a procession of many, Tate McRae checked in with Audacy’s Bru to chat all about having fun working on what’s next, her focused studio session behavior that inspired the lyrics to her new bop, the vulnerability of the writing process, and a whole lot more. Sharing that “creating the world of my next” project is what she’s currently having the most fun with right now, Tate noted, “my next songs and all the music videos and the treatments, I love that part, it’s one of my favorite parts. So, it's been fun to start to carve that world out and see what it looks like.” Of course, our first introduction to this “new world” arrived earlier this month with the release of “It’s ok, I’m ok,” another banger Tate can add to her ever growing collection. The track which lyrically assures her ex’s new boo that she’s more than fine with no longer being with a walking red flag, actually “started from a conversation of me being like, 'It's ok I'm ok' - and we were like, 'That would be a crazy pop song,’ Tate previously told Rolling Stone. That conversation, as she went on to reveal to Capital Breakfast's Jordan North, Chris Stark and Sian Welby, earlier this month, actually had nothing to do with relationship woes at all. "I have this thing in [music writing] sessions where I just won't eat unless I finish the song. It's honestly just like if I'm in the studio I have to finish the song and then I'll eat my meal, I can't eat in the middle of writing," she explained to the UK radio morning show. "So then Ilya and Savan would be like, 'Hey do you want food?' and then everyday for like two weeks straight I'd say, 'It's okay, I'm okay’” Tate revealed. "Then we were like, 'We should just put that down as a joke', and then it ended up turning into a song.” Expanding more on the reasoning for her focused studio session behavior during her chat with Bru, Tate said it’s “because you never know when you're going to crack the song, like you're sitting there sometimes it can be like nine hours before you crack the best idea." In addition to the delayed gratification of a meal, Tate also isn’t a fan of yapping in the studio. “I mean, a lot of people treat sessions like a yap fest,” McRae said, noting “it’s me and Amy Allen, who's an unbelievable songwriter,” that prefer quiet creative spaces. “She did ‘Greedy’ with me, and she's in the majority of my album… Me and her have the same thing… everyone yaps around us and we're just laser focused.” Sharing why her new track didn’t make the cut for her sophomore album, Think Later, Tate said, “I think like ...

Halsey checked in with Audacy’s Mike Adam at the Hard Rock Hotel in New York, to chat all about her new single “EGO,” forthcoming album The Great Impersonator, arriving October 25, and more. With her 30th birthday coming up, Halsey started the conversation off by reflecting on just how much has happened in the last decade, both personally and professionally. “I'm excited for this birthday… because it means a lot to me. It's been a hard couple of years and I'm about to turn 30. It's a big, big birthday. It's also, you know, 10 years since I put out my first album, Badlands." She continued, “so… that decade from being 19 turning 20, putting out my first album, now being 29 turning 30 about to put out my fifth album. It all just feels mystical… feels like a lot of synchronicity in that.” As for feeling her age, Halsey admitted, “I’ve felt 30 since I was like 15. I’m catching up now." “Sometimes, there's certain people in this life who are the age they are and then they stay that way… Like my mom, for example, is just perpetually 21. She had me when she was 20, and has just been 21 for as long as I've known her. She's 51 and she is like tatted up, tongue piercing, like super cool girl, but she just gives off the energy of someone who's like 21. I've been 35 since I was born.” Halsey who outwardly loves Halloween, also shared she has some costume ideas for this year, but didn’t feel like sharing them. Noting, “I’m a big gatekeeper about Halloween,” not wanting to give any ideas away. “I love Halloween, every couple of years I throw a huge Halloween party in LA, and we do it to benefit My Friend's Place, which is a charity organization and a resource center for unhoused youth in Los Angeles. It’s super awesome, super close to my heart, and I love it,” Halsey expressed. “I prepare for my costume for like months.” Ultimately deciding to share her idea after all, Halsey revealed the costume idea she wants to do with her son. “I really want to do The Shining, and I want to get him on his little tricycle as Danny, and I want to be Shelley Duvall and I just want to like take these pictures with my creepy little kid on a tricycle and his hair is like the perfect, he's got those long bangs.” Naturally shifting the conversation from Halloween to parenthood, Mike asked Halsey if having a child has changed her relationship with her parents. “Oh my gosh, I'm actually really glad you asked me this question because there's a lot of this on the album actually,” Halsey answered. “So when I was writing The Great Impersonator, I was going through a lot in my personal life, a lot of those changes were becoming a new mom, and I also, I got really sick. I got the kind of sick that makes you think about your life and look at it in that way,” Halsey reflected. “I started thinking about my childhood, and there's a lot of songs on this album that kind of touch on that, touch ...

Checking in with Audacy’s Mike Adam at the Hard Rock Hotel in New York, Khalid chatted all about his new album Sincere, song samples, possible collab project pairings, and more. With five years between his last and most recent album, Khalid spoke to why he knew now was the time to finally drop his third album. “Well when I started off, I started writing music at 17 years old. So to go from being a high school student to a multi-platinum career in a matter of 2 to 3 years… it was insane,” Khalid began. “It’s nothing that they can teach you, it’s nothing that they can prepare you for. So I really feel like I had to take some time off to write, to understand what I wanted my true impact as an artist to be on this earth. What ways I wanted to connect with my fans, and so it took a lot of lived experiences, and walking life, and seeing the world… seeing different sides of the world for me to get to this point where I finished this album… and I feel like I’m putting something out that is rooted in my core, it’s exactly the name of the album, it’s Sincere.” The album’s lead single "Please Don't Fall in Love with Me,” samples the Alicia Keys and Drake 2009 bop “Unthinkable (I’m Ready).” A song millennials need no introduction to, but perhaps the Gen-Zs listening do. A thought that got Mike thinking to ask Khalid if he can remember the first song he heard that he didn't know was a sample, that introduced him to an old song or even a recent song that he might have not known about before. “I would say it was this song, one of my favorite songs actually that I've loved for years, ‘Feel It All Around’ by Washed Out," Khalid shared. “I didn't know that the whole baseline of that song is a sample from another song." After some internet research, it turns out the sample is Italian singer Gary Low's "I Want You,” released in 1983. Khalid also mentioned “Changes,” by Tupac as an example, noting “I love the sample now,” adding that he’s “been listening to ‘The Way It Is,' Bruce Hornsby, for a minute now, I’m addicted to that song.” Having sampled Drake and being, as Mike put it, “a lifelong die hard Kendrick fan as well, he wanted to know Khalid’s thoughts on if he feels that “in 2024 rap beef is still important for the culture, for Hip-Hop." Admitting that he while definitely believes “that competition in any sport is important to thrive, to create, for the culture,” he went on to say, “Me, I'm a little Pop star that stays out the way and minds my own business. So I don't really get too much in other people's business or anybody else's altercations. I kind of try to choose a low profile, chill, relaxed life over here.” Adding, “as long as people are looking at it for their benefit, to thrive in creativity… I don't necessarily see it as a problem.”

Back for another Audacy Check In now that her album has dropped, Gracie Abrams stopped by to chat with Bru all about The Secret of Us, and share what fans can expect from her upcoming headlining tour, plus a whole lot more. Released June 21, Gracie’s sophomore album features lead singles, “Risk” and “Close To You,” as well as the standout track, “Us,” featuring Taylor Swift, who Gracie opened for on The Eras Tour last summer. Set to rejoin Swift for some additional dates this fall, Gracie also has tour plans of her own. Hitting up theaters across the United States from September 5 through October 10 with special guest, Role Model. Filling us in on what she’s most excited about on The Secret of Us Tour, Gracie shared, “Honestly I’m just excited to be back with everyone, I feel like the heart of tour is the people that you get to do it with both backstage and also the people that show up and make up the audience.” “I've missed the community, and I feel like touring is such a specific environment and brings out like a very chaotic, beautifully chaotic side in people. So I've missed that kind of chaos and I'm excited to kind of just have a really fun loose tour.” Sharing what fans can expect, and what makes this tour different from the previous, Gracie noted, “This is like a different scale for us… I mean, even seeing the stage yesterday for the first time was pretty mind blowing. I didn't even anticipate, even after having seen renders of the stage, it's just really wild when you're actually standing there and everything exists and is tangible.” That being said, Gracie is no stranger to big stages, having opened up for artists like Noah Kahan, and of course, Taylor Swift. Revealing that stepping onto their stages inspired her when putting together her own show, Gracie revealed, “I think it's like infectious to be around artists that are great at what they do. And I think, you know, Noah and Taylor are both incredibly talented performers and both are so connected to their audiences. So I think more than anything, it just contributes to the itch of wanting to be back on stage.” A feeling, that as an introvert, Gracie found surprising to crave. “I never thought when I started playing shows that I would miss it, just because it is… intense. And also even just socially for someone that leans kind of more on the introverted side, it can feel like a lot of almost overexposure. But then it's funny, I totally fell in love with what it is, to connect with people in that way.” Though it might seem like The Secret of Us just dropped, because it kind of just did, Gracie, while enjoying it’s success and spoils, naturally already has her mind on what’s next. “I think after something's been released, I tend to just get this anticipatory anxiety around making the next thing. So I've started to feel that creep up.”

Following the release of his summer singles singles "Out of Time” featuring Bea Miller and “Lucky” featuring Remi Wolf, and ahead of dropping his forthcoming album, Telos, out August 30, Zedd checked in with Audacy’s Mike Adam at the Hard Rock Hotel in New York to chat all about both, plus a whole lot more. Curious about how the final work comes together, Mike asked, “Were you able to get in studio with the majority of these people or does that just not happen that much anymore?” “It depends,” Zedd admitted. “What I will very frequently do is I will ask singers to record a little demo for me just so I can feel the tone on a record and see if this is something that I think will fit.” Adding, “Now, when it matters, I will usually be in the studio and record them.” “I think that's one of my strengths,” Zedd continued, “to get the best out of a singer and to make them feel comfortable and confident to sing they're heart out. So when it matters, when I record the final vocal, I will in 99% of cases, record the singers myself.” Admittedly very demanding, and the type of producer to want to get as many takes to have the most amount of options possible, Zedd said, “Every singer temporarily hates me at the end of a session and I typically will stop just before the voice gives up. But the reason is because in the past I recorded a song where I had to have a singer come back to sing one singular word and I don't want to do that. Honestly, I do it for for the singer because I want them to be super happy.” “I record an obscene amount of takes of everything in octaves and doubles and harmonies. But then in every case, when I then send them the final result, they're always so happy.” Zedd recalled working with Bea Miller in the studio on his new album’s first single, as a prime example of a demanding studio sesh. “I think Bea Miller was one of the artists that I've probably pushed the hardest because the song is not easy to sing and it's in a really high range and she already was kind of unsure if she could do it.” “I knew she could do it without a question,” he continued, “but I think there's so many vocals, vocal parts, and octaves… that like we really went up until the voice gave up.” Facetiously adding, “I think she still to this day has severe PTSD of recording with me.” “She's funny because she's so good and she's such an incredible singer but she doesn't think of herself that way. I mean, she's very humble about her voice, but genuinely saved the song we did together because she brought an energy to the song that really was missing.” Mike then recalled a time after Zedd’s 2018 hit track “The Middle” came out, there were many headlines reporting that “there were 5,000 demos from everybody from Camilla Cabello to Demi Lov ...