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Q&A: Yelawolf And Shooter Jennings On Their Debut Rock Album, 'Sometimes Y'

The duo of Yelawolf (L) and Shooter Jennings have released their debut rock album, 'Sometimes Y.'

Spidey Smith

While Sometimes Y is the first rock and roll album from the duo of rap star Yelawolf and country royalty Shooter Jennings, rock and roll is in their blood as they point out. "Our parents grew up on '60s and '70s rock and roll, so that was in our household from birth," Yelawolf says during my lengthy conversation with he and Jennings.

It was a very pointed decision from the newly formed duo to make their live debut in front of thousands of fans at a free show at the legendary Rainbow Bar & Grill on the Sunset Strip. The Rainbow, affectionately known as "The house that Lemmy built" (after the late great Motorhead frontman) is a bastion of rock lore. On the wall in an upstairs room are the names of the Hollywood Vampires — including Alice Cooper, Keith Moon, John Lennon, Harry Nilsson and more — who used to haunt the halls.

So yeah, if you want to feel and share the spirit of rock, there is arguably no better place than the Rainbow. And this Sunday, May 8, the duo will do their first-ever headlining gig down the street from the Rainbow, doing another free show at the Viper Room.

As they explained, the free shows are part of their new approach to touring, one that came about during COVID. I spoke to the duo about their rock and roll legacy, getting the stamp of approval from the likes of Tommy Lee and Lynyrd Skynyrd and much more.

Steve Baltin: How has COVID shifted your approach to music and touring?

Yelawolf: As far as touring goes, I hit a big reset button. I was in Europe, actually in Russia when Trump made that call, like basically come back or stay. We were gonna stay actually I had a couple of my crew members did stay. But my manager was like, "Dude, we should just get back, man." It was our biggest tour to date in Europe. We just had to just bite the bullet and go home, came right home, straight into quarantine, built out a little studio with the equipment that I had and just started mapping out a bunch of music. Shooter and I started trading ideas during that time as well, one of which was "Hole In My Head," acoustic records that he cut. We didn't have lyrics but he sent me the demo and that was the seed that really ultimately planted this whole Sometimes Y album because we both really got excited about it. [And] I know that when I came back and I sat down, I was like, "Damn, I really have been on the road 250 days a year for 10 years. Is there a new approach? Is there a way that we can reinvent the way that we push a project?" And so we just decided collectively that, "Look, man, we've been doing this for a long time, so wouldn't it be better if we just do s**t that we thought was rad in the beginning? Instead of trying to hustle this s**t on the road, out of the gate, can we just be selective about where we go, when we go and who we're going to rock with? What are the bands, the venues that make this interesting?" I think overall we just feel like accessibility is just way too much right now these days, everything is so easy. Everything's so available and we're nostalgic, so we appreciate mystery, we appreciate the story. So that's what we decided to do is build the story of our favorite rock and roll band. Like the way that we would have, we would appreciate seeing it.

Shooter Jennings: Yeah dude, I love that. What you're saying is so true. We had all been in this f**king tunnel of how touring works and nobody's looking outside, everything is going by. I've been here 22 years, and it wasn't until 2020 that I sat around and go, "I live in LA. I love this place." And I really just looked at where I was, and really appreciated the city and I had not slowed down. And I think it was something that everyone who plays music, the way the system works you get an agent they get you on the road, you're doing gigs, you're playing half full rooms. You're servicing everywhere. Instead of servicing the machine, you're kind of servicing the road. And all of a sudden when it made us stop and turn around and go, "Wow, I have become used to something and it's so different. How do we make this count?" I think that this whole thing forced everybody to figure out a financial way to deal with it, and then now that we have financially dealt with that, we're looking at ourselves and going, "What's the healthy way to do this?" And I think that's a great thing. And I think that with our band, we're picking and choosing the show to do. We just had our first rehearsal last night, really, since the record, and it was awesome. We're picking these moments that really count. And we're gonna play in Nashville, we're gonna play in New York, we're gonna play in Long Beach some day. But the reality is, we're gonna do things that count and it's gonna make it special. And I think the pandemic has really let us nurture ourselves and appreciate ourselves and really, for that reason, give more to the audience than we did before. I think we were kind of slogging like super zombies on the road for a long time in a lot of these shows. And now we kind of have healed ourselves that we're like, "Okay, let's take a beat, we're gonna do it this way."

Baltin: How did you decide to start at the Rainbow?

Yelawolf: We were, of course, pitched multiple times to do an industry show. "Let's bring all the industry out." "F**k that dude. This is where we're playing. Invite them. They can come see us rock, come see us play a show." I got a long history with that though, man. I don't like bending for that particular part of the game. And to a certain extent, I'm applying a lot of what I've learned already to the approach of this album. And because at the end of the day, we're all just people.

Jennings: We were saying this last night and I don't want this to come across like an ego thing, but we've worked so hard. We're 42 years old. We've worked our whole lives to get here. We were saying this last night, "We could call The Rainbow and get on their fiftieth thing." We wanted to do it. And we could call them and ask to get on that because they knew we had paid our dues at this point, and for us, I may not be a rich man, but I'm a happy man, because I've worked a lot to get to where I'm at and kept my focus on what was important. And so has Yelawolf and our friendship isout of all of that. So, to me, I feel very grateful and honored to be playing at The Rainbows fiftieth. It almost feels like the validation for the hard work we put in through all the years to be able to be on it just because we wanted to be on it.

Yelawolf: It feels so much better than a check You could have given us 100 grand to do this at some f**king casino in Vegas, and we'd be bummed. And we do this s**t for free, and we're the happiest people ever. [chuckle]. Especially for the first rock and roll album that both of us ever put out.

Jennings: We felt it was important for us to put ourselves amidst all of that and say we believed in the legacy of rock and roll and we wanna be included in it. And this was a moment of us being able to be included in the important rock and roll moment.

Baltin: What does the spirit of rock and roll mean to you?

Yelawolf: Shooter and I both grew up really fast. We missed a great deal of our childhood. And so yeah, I'm 42 years old, but I promise you I'm waking up for something. I feel it, I have the energy of it, and it's like we should just celebrate our youth right now. And everybody has their time. Sometimes a 20-year-old kid, or a 20-year-old band will fall into something special and that's that. Our destiny has led us to this point, and I couldn't be happier about that. And also, Shooter and I, we're both kind of golden era. I've said this before, but our parents grew up on '60s and '70s rock and roll, so that was in our household from birth. We had all the '80s and '90s. We just got this wealth of rad s**t, and so we have the opportunity now to celebrate all that. And personally, I'm never gonna stop raging, I'm just not. At the end of the day we're trying to have fun, man.

Baltin: What songs are you excited to do live?

Jennings: Man, I'm excited to play "Moonshiner's Run," I'll tell you that. Actually, I'm excited to play the whole thing.

Yelawolf: I'm just excited for us as a band just to stand on a f**king stage. It's our first show, man. And it's a huge deal for us. It's a pinnacle, man. It's our first gig, man. How many firsts do you get in life? This is a very special moment for us. And to do it there, come on. I'm pretty good buddies with Tommy Lee. I talk to him quite a bit. I was talking to him yesterday. To be speaking with Tommy back and forth, Shooter's back and forth with Duff, McKagan and we have the blessings of these guys. And that is amazing. We got this opening spot for Lynyrd Skynyrd in September. That's another serendipitous thing, I've made music with Peter Keys, I've been friends with Rickey Medlocke for a long time. And so I went to their rehearsal the other morning, like 10:00 AM talking to Van Zant and just pitched it right there. Like, "Yo, man, we'd love to open up for you guys," done deal. Boom, September we're opening up for Lynyrd Skynyrd. So s**t is paying off. I'm so happy.

Baltin: When you play these gigs what do you hope people take from them?

Jennings: The greatest thing about our band is that both of us know our audiences individually, but we have no idea what our audience is with Sometimes Y. And in that way it's a beautiful thing. We're picking where to present ourselves live and hoping that there'll be somebody in the audience that doesn't know either one of us. Or maybe they do, but then goes, "Oh, this speaks to me." When we made this record we knew it wasn't like other modern rock records. We're not people who listen to the radio so we don't really know what is popular. We just know what we like.

Alpha Wolf Chat The 5 Biggest Influences Behind Their New Album 'Half Living Things'

Melbourne metalcore heroes Alpha Wolf have just unleashed third studio album Half Living Things, a self-produced metal masterpiece loaded with huge party-starters, neck-snapping breakdowns, stomping hooks and an internet-breaking collab with legendary Body Count frontman, rapper and Law & Order: SVU star Ice-T.

In the lead-up to their sold-out Australian album headline tour this August, Alpha Wolf guitarist Sabian Lynch and bassist Scottie Simpson sat down with Music Feeds to spill the beans about five of the biggest things that influenced the monster new record. Check out what they had to say down below.

Alpha Wolf – 'Haunter' 1. Themselves

Sabian Lynch: In the least cocky and egotistical way possible, we influence ourselves a lot. Mitch [Fogarty] wrote a lot on this album on guitar – and he's our drummer, I feel like he had to switch on "Alpha Wolf brain" to write Alpha Wolf riffs because he comes from such a wider range of heavy music than the rest of us do ourselves. For him to write music in our world, he had to get influences from us, what we listen to and what we write. It was really cool for him to step up and write what are now going to be staple Alpha Wolf songs. It's a new brain in our mix. Well, not so much new, he has been around for a long time now, but for him to write riffs and now be writing full songs – it's something we wouldn't have come up with it ourselves without him.

2. Nu-Metal

Sabian: Next up, we have to shout out nu metal, and bands like Korn, Limp Bizkit and Linkin Park. They've always been favourites. We love what they did for the world and we will forever be influenced by what they did, what they continue to do and how it took over the world. The crazy hooks with crazy heavy type stuff are a huge influence, and one day we'll do what they can do. Especially now with the Ice-T collaboration, that was such a big thing back in the day, heavy metal and rappers collaborating. We love that.

3. The Audience

Sabian: For the next one: we are influenced by our audience. We love the reaction we get when we play live. We can see what they enjoy, we love providing that, and we love our live performance more than anything. We love writing good music, but we love performing live music and we always want to have the best live show ever. So, it's good to be able to write parts in our music that we know are going to impress us live, as well as seeing the audience's reaction – and it just makes us tear up a little bit and feel emotional when we deliver those parts live. That's always going to play a part. We're never going to just sit onstage with a laptop and press play because audiences will get bored. But anything we can deliver live that garners a wired, crazy reaction – we live for that.

4. Music Beyond The World Of 'Heavy'

Scottie Simpson: Production wise, for me especially, I reference a lot of Billie Eilish, PVRIS, Fred Again, and a lot of things generally outside of heavy music. I mean, it's a pretty typical thing for a person who writes heavy music to say, but it's about referencing shit from outside of your genre, whether it's production-related or structure-related. And it opens you up to things that you wouldn't normally hear in a heavy song, or you find something that makes you think in a different way, how you'll structure a song differently or just trying different things in general. Production-wise especially, we try to add a lot of cool noises and cool sounds, and I get a lot of that influence from pop stuff.

Sabian: I still remember that interview that Billie Eilish did where she said she sampled the Melbourne crosswalk sound.

Scottie: Yeah, that's just so fucking cool.

5. Parkway Drive

Sabian: Probably not so much music-wise of late, but business, hustle and everything else-wise: Parkway Drive. The documentaries back in the day started everything for us. And what they've been able to do with their band, being a heavy band – it's always going to be influential, especially for any Australian band. They're mega excited about their upcoming tour, we're mega excited about our tour, and it's cool to see a band that will still get excited about what they're doing. And we're always going to look up to them.

New Kids On The Block Thank 'Blockheads' For Their Support In Video Announcing Release Date Of Upcoming Album

Blockheads, rejoice!

New Kids on the Block have a release date for their new album. In a fun Instagram video jointly posted on their band account and member Joey McIntyre's account on April 4, the boy band announced that their upcoming album, Still Kids, will be released on May 17.

In the clip, set to the album's lead single, "Kids," McIntyre, 51, goofed around with his bandmates Jonathan Knight, Jordan Knight, Donnie Wahlberg and Danny Wood. The upcoming album is New Kids on the Block's first in more than a decade.

"Blockheads thank you for all of the love you've shown "KIDS"! Pre-save our new album 'Still Kids' out on May 17th 🤖❤️ #StillKids #KIDS #NewMusic," read the caption of the video. The band members all wore denim and dark shirts in the video as they lip-synced the words to their latest song.

According to the album's press release, fans can expect "pop anthems, dance tracks, love songs and grooves" on the 14-track album, which follows 2013's 10.

Still Kids will also feature fun collaborations with artists from the 1980s including DJ Jazzy Jeff on the song "Get Down" and singer-songwriter Taylor Dayne on "Old School Love."

"Kids" was written and produced by David Stewart and Luke Batt, but per the press release, Wahlberg, 54, has co-written seven songs and is the album's creative director. McIntyre is a co-writer on six songs.

From left: Joey McIntyre, Jonathan Knight, Jordan Knight, Donnie Wahlberg and Danny Wood.

Jose Perez/Bauer-Griffin/GC

The two bandmates each shared a statement in the album's press release.

"It's the most mature album we've ever made," Wahlberg said. "Yet it's the most fun and most comfortable album we've ever made."

He continued, "This album, more than any other, is bringing the New Kids and the fans full circle. It's about hope and possibilities and being ourselves."

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New Kids on the Block.

Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic

"It says a lot about any band to make a record that has energy and passion and lightness and fun and depth — after almost 40 years together? It's crazy," McIntyre said

New Kids on the Block will support the upcoming album with a summer tour featuring DJ Jazzy Jeff and Paula Abdul.

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