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NOVEMBER 2019 ISSUE 1333

Plus

Billie EILISH & Billie Joe

Elton

ARMSTRONG

Diddy & DJ KHALED

JOHN &

Ringo

Lana

STARR &

Dave

GROHL

DEL REY

Lenny

KRAVITZ &

H.E.R. David

BYRNE &

Tierra WHACK

And More

S P E C I A L I S SU E

MUSICIANS

on MUSICIANS

WARNING: This prod Nicotine is an ad

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uct contains nicotine. dictive chemical.

Ten epic conversations on creativity, performing, overcoming adversity, and making music that matters 56

Elton John & Lana Del Rey

66

Carrie Brownstein & Maggie Rogers

72

Lenny Kravitz & H.E.R.

62

Billie Eilish & Billie Joe Armstrong

68

David Byrne & Tierra Whack

74

Bonnie Raitt & Brandi Carlile

65

Jenny Lewis & Justin Vernon

70

St. Vincent & Kirk Hammett

76

Ringo Starr & Dave Grohl

PHOTOGRAPH BY Wayne Lawrence

November 2019

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Contents

89 The Mix

His hits with the Cars defined New Wave — but there was hurt underneath.

King of the Babies

BY DAVID BROWNE

With two hit albums in 2019, DaBaby is one of the year’s biggest breakouts.

34

BY CHARLES HOLMES

20

At Home With the McCartneys

24

BY DAVID FEAR

36 TRIBUTES

30

Beck Hits ‘Escape’ The singer teams up with Pharrell for an adventurous album about escapism.

Ginger Baker The wild life and revolutionary rhythm of the late Cream drummer.

BY DAVID BROWNE

My Obsession: Big Boi

BY EMILY BLAKE

Q&A

38

The rapper finds mythical wisdom in his pet owls.

BY BRITTANY SPANOS

10 12 22 41 98

Kesha Pops Off The star on embracing happiness and returning to her pop sound.

Departments Letter From the Editor Correspondence Playlist Random Notes The Last Word

RS Charts Taylor Swift and Post Malone take very different roads to Number One.

BY ANDY GREENE

26

Ed Norton’s 20-Year Noir Inside the two-decade journey to bring Motherless Brooklyn to the big screen.

34

A new book of Linda McCartney’s Polaroids offers an intimate look at one of rock’s First Families.

BY ANGIE MARTOCCIO

Ric Ocasek

BY BRIAN HIATT

National Affairs MATT TAIBBI

48

Joe Biden Paradox Facing four more years of Trump, should Democrats go all in on the former VP?

54

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Jay Inslee Isn’t Going Away How his failed presidential bid was a success for the climate-crisis agenda.

BY JEFF GOODELL

36 Reviews Music 81 Miranda’s Rock Revolution A country queen cranks up the guitars and the charm.

BY JON DOLAN

TV 84 Jesse Pinkman’s Last Stand

Books 86 The Real-Life Rocketman Elton John’s memoir is an unsparing look at the man behind the glittery hits.

BY ANDY GREENE

Movies 89 ‘The Irishman’

With El Camino, the other antihero of Breaking Bad gets the farewell he deserves.

Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, and Joe Pesci hit new peaks in Martin Scorsese’s epic about memory, murder, and the Mob. Plus: Marriage Story, Knives Out, and Ford v Ferrari.

BY ALAN SEPINWALL

BY PETER TRAVERS

On the Cover Elton John and Lana Del Rey photographed in Los Angeles on September 11th, 2019, by Ryan McGinley.

Elton John’s grooming by Jamie Madison.

FROM TOP, LEFT TO RIGHT: NETFLIX; AMY HARRITY; EVAN AGOSTINI/ INVISION/AP IMAGES/SHUTTERSTOCK; SCOTT OLSON/GETTY IMAGES

19

32

Jason Fine

Gus Wenner

Jay Penske

EDITOR

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Ralph J. Gleason Hunter S. Thompson

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November 2019

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Editor’s Letter

“I think it’s important not to be dissuaded by the difficulty of the task. I mean, yeah, it’s a tall mountain we’ve got to climb. But you do it one step at a time.” — G OV. J AY I N SL E E , on the climate crisis

When Musicians Ask the Questions

JA S ON F I N E EDITOR

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Trump’s Attack on the Constitution GOT A HOT NEWS TIP? WE WANT TO HEAR IT.

Email us, confidentially, at Tips@ RollingStone .com

A leading historian on the president’s dangerous abuses of power I N “ W H Y W E M U ST I M P E AC H” (page 45), historian Sean Wilentz argues that Donald Trump’s presidency has brought the most sustained and serious attack on the Constitution since the Civil War era. “If he succeeds, and especially if he is re-elected, the Constitution will be dead in all but name,” says Wilentz, a longtime RS contributor and the George Henry Davis 1886 Professor of American History at Princeton University. For Trump to be removed from office, Republicans need to turn on him the way they turned on Nixon.

“That’s the big question,” Wilentz says. “This is the same as him shooting someone on Fifth Avenue: His base is cheering it on.”

TRIBUTE

Revolutionary Drummer Ginger Baker, 1939-2019

I N 2 0 0 9, D RU M M E R

Ginger Baker was a battered legend living in seclusion in Tulbagh, South Africa, when ROLLING STONE writer Jay Bulger went to live with him to report the feature “The Devil and Ginger Baker” [RS 1085]. Along with Bulger’s 2012 award-winning documentary, Beware of Mr. Baker, the story brought the

massively influential and innovative musician back into the spotlight. Baker, who died on October 6th at 80 (page 28), co-founded Cream with Eric Clapton and Jack Bruce in 1966. They fizzled out just two years later, but Baker’s career would carry on for the next four decades, laying the groundwork for heavy metal and introducing America to world music in the Seventies. Baker was as well known for his pioneering technique as he was for his temper and outsize personality. “He was the greatest shit-talker who ever lived,” says Bulger. “He never held back.”

FROM TOP: JABIN BOTSFORD/”THE WASHINGTON POST”/GETTY IMAGES; DEZO HOFFMAN/SHUTTERSTOCK

OVER THE COURSE of 52 years and thousands of interviews with musicians, actors, politicians, and celebrities in these pages, at least one thing has remained consistent: We’ve always asked the questions. Aside from a memorable encounter between Carrie Fisher and Madonna for a 1991 cover story, our staff has rarely given up the role of interlocutors.

Until now.

For our first annual Musicians on Musicians issue (or, the “Icons on Icons” issue, as Diddy and DJ Khaled renamed it in their conversation), we invited some of our favorite artists to get together for intimate conversations about music, life, inspiration, and creativity. “You had to ignore every instinct you have as a journalist to jump in,” says senior music editor Patrick Doyle, who edited the package and moderated several of the conversations. “It was almost like you weren’t supposed to be there, and that’s how we wanted it to feel. All the layers of mystery, ego, or anything else fell away when they sat down together.”

In many cases, the conversations paired an artist with one of her or his biggest influences: H.E.R. and Lenny Kravitz bond over breaking industry rules as black artists; St. Vincent reveals to Metallica’s Kirk Hammett that he inspired her to put down her violin and pick up the guitar at age 10; Billie Eilish — who was two years old when Green Day’s American Idiot came out — visits her hero Billie Joe Armstrong and finds out that she’s his hero too. “I always gravitate toward music that sounds like freedom,” Billie Joe told Billie. “And that’s what I get from your music.”

Artists went to great lengths to make these conversations happen: Brandi Carlile flew across the country from a tour stop to sit down with Bonnie Raitt; David Byrne rode his bicycle all the way across Brooklyn to talk to Tierra Whack; Elton John sat down with Lana Del Rey at his Beverly Hills home hours before a concert in Anaheim. Del Rey pulled up to his house in a pickup truck armed with 13 pages of questions she wrote on a typewriter. “She opened up to Elton in a way I’d never seen her open up to anyone,” says Doyle. “Elton had such respect for her. It didn’t feel like anyone was a superstar in that room. You were just sitting at a kitchen table talking to two people.”

INSIDE THE STORY

Correspondence

+ L OV E L E T T E R S & A DV IC E

“People are going to focus on the Kanye revelations, but we cannot overlook what Taylor Swift says about politics today.

She’s spot-on.”

America’s Price Tag Moscow Mitch [“The Man Who Sold America,” RS 1332] would sell his own mother down the river if he thought there was some money in it for him.

—Tom O’Donnell, via Facebook Besides selling out the middle class, he has sold out his country. He must be voted out!

—Monica Ayres Kooger, via Facebook

—Kimberly, via Twitter

Taylor Breaks Her Silence

Buckley in 1994

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“What a brutally honest deep dive into what really happened in the quiet, darker years.” Added Allison O’Lantern, “It was totally worth a precious halfhour of non-law-school reading.” But not all readers were interested in old feuds. “What happened with Kanye West does not define you,” wrote Marie.

“I’m ready for questions to stop being asked about that.” Of course, non-Swift fans had something to say about the piece. “Taylor Swift: who everyone should get their political analysis from, despite her admitting that she’s essentially just learning about politics,” said reader Dennis Ledesma.

@tamara_1997: Going to the library just to sit in complete silence and concentrate on the entire Taylor Swift ROLLING STONE profile.

SPOTLIGHT

On the Front Lines of the Border Crisis The crisis at the border [“The Deadliest Crossing,” RS 1332] is not the result of hundreds of thousands of migrants hoping for the promise of the American dream. It’s the result of our shortsighted, self-seeking, and corrupt policymakers in Washington. Our policies are supporting the cartel economy, separating families, and creating childhood trauma.

This is not right. It is not just.

Another Side of Jeff Buckley

—Merlin Lucas, via the internet

In the years since he tragically drowned at age 30, in 1997, Jeff Buckley has become an ethereal cult figure, sitting in the ranks of tortured artists like Nick Drake and Elliott Smith. Released on October 15th, Jeff Buckley: His Own Voice is a window into the late musician’s creative process and personal life. Co-edited by Buckley’s mother, Mary Guibert, and ROLLING STONE senior writer David Browne, the collection features diary entries, handwritten lyrics, and exclusive photos. “He had an instant mystique,” says Browne, one of the first journalists to interview Buckley, in 1993. “You get to hear from him directly about some of his goals and frustrations, and I think it will enhance his legacy in terms of showing what he put into his art.

He made only one album when he was alive (1994’s Grace), and this will show what led up to that, that it wasn’t an overnight situation. He really did work at it for a long time.”

This is like reading something from the past where one would shake their head and say, “Thank God we know better now.” Except we don’t. Heartbreaking and inhumane.

—Paula Amato, via Twitter

CONTACT US Letters to ROLLING STONE, 475 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10017. Letters become the property of ROLLING STONE and may be edited for publication.

Email: letters@rollingstone.com Subscriber Services: Call 800-283-1549.

ANTHONY PIDGEON/MEDIAPUNCH/SHUTTERSTOCK

In the years since Taylor Swift last appeared on our cover [RS 1218, in 2014], she withdrew from the public eye, stepping back to reclaim privacy. In conversation with senior writer Brian Hiatt [“Taylor Swift: The ROLLING STONE Interview,” RS 1332], Swift gives the most revealing interview of her career, and in four days it surpassed half a million unique views online. She delved into her contentious relationship with Kanye West, why she’s focusing on the 2020 election, and the surprise betrayal of her former label boss. “Reading this feels like we personally caught up,” said reader “Doj.”

Opening Act

Post Malone: Moshing His Way Across America POST MALONE’S new

album, Hollywood’s Bleeding, is full of songs about the Dallas rapper’s grueling inner pain. But on his Runaway Tour to support the chart-topping album, ongoing through late November, Post has also experienced some pretty serious outer pain. “My creative and brand manager, Bobby Greenleaf, hurt my wrist moshing to Slipknot in my hotel room in Sacramento,” Post says, in reference to this dressing-room photo, “so I was struggling to put my socks on.”

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PHOTOGRAPH Rolling Stone |BY March Adam 2018 DeGross

Post brings a similar visceral intensity to the show itself. “My name is Austin Richard Post, and I’ve come to play some shitty music for y’all,” he recently said onstage at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Post turned introspective songs like “Goodbyes” and “Allergic” into high-energy moments as he rampaged across the stage and even danced a little, punctuating song after song with the phrase, “Thank you so fucking much.” The show features an acoustic run-through of “Stay,” a standout from his 2018 LP, Beerbongs & Bentleys, and a video cameo by Ozzy Osbourne.

It’s “some Beatles rock-star monumental shit,” says Florida rapper Tyla Yaweh, who is opening shows along with Swae Lee of Rae Sremmurd. Lee also joins Post late in the night to perform their 2019 summer smash collaborative single, “Sunflower.”

“It’s one of the best tours yet,” Post says. “I love hanging with Swae and Tyla. Those are my boys, and we all know it’s about to be a hot-boy fall.” JON DOLAN

BEERBONGS AND BUSTED WRISTS Malone in his dressing room in Sacramento

March 2018

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Raise one TO THOSE WHO NEVER L E T Y O U D O W N.

Jim Beam Black® Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey, 43% Alc./Vol. ©2019 James B. Beam Distilling Co., Clermont, KY.

PHOTOGRAPHED AT DAPPER DAN’S HARLEM ATELIER IN NEW YORK CITY. CUSTOM GUCCI BY DAPPER DAN OF HARLEM

Baby of the Year How DaBaby went from performing in a diaper to becoming one of the best — and biggest — young stars in hip-hop

PHOTOGRAPH BY Josiah Rundles

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The Mix

LINDA MCCARTNEY’S HEART OF THE COUNTRY

Above: Paul reclines on era-appropriate paisley sheets in an undated photo from the 1970s. Top: Longtime vegetarian and animal activist Linda stands with friends in Campbeltown, Scotland. “She was a great believer in the happy accident,” Paul has said.

DABABY

S

INCE LAST YEAR, DaBaby has released two hit albums, two mixtapes, 15 music videos, and more than 20 highprofile features, while coining one highly distinctive catchphrase (“Goin’ baby,” an amorphous term that means to do something well). If you ask him, it’s all part of his more-is-more (but never enough) strategy.

“When you’ve got a sound that don’t sound like nobody else, and it’s brand-new, you’ve got to feed it to ’em,” DaBaby stresses. “You’ve got to force it on ’em.”

The sound in question is a precise, staccato, syllable-crushing flow that has cut through a rap landscape dominated for years by singsong melodies and Auto-Tune, mak-

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ing DaBaby one of 2019’s biggest new stars.

The week following the release of DaBaby’s latest album, KIRK, 12 of the top 25 tracks on ROLLING STONE’s Top 100 Songs chart are by DaBaby or feature his voice.

In just a few years, the North Carolina native, born Jonathan Lyndale Kirk, has gone from viral curiosity — he wore a diaper to market himself at 2017’s SXSW — to a rap traditionalist with a Ludacris- or Busta Rhymeslevel eye for comedic videos. (“Suge” features him dancing around in fake muscles in a goofy homage to Suge Knight.)

Yet fame has also brought its share of darker moments: DaBaby has been in the news for knocking out rival rappers on camera, and during an altercation in a North Carolina Walmart last November, he shot and killed a man. (DaBaby claimed self-defense and was

FAST FACT COLLEGE BABY

DaBaby attended the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, one of the few black students at a predominantly white school. “I stuck out like a sore thumb, but I adapted,” he says. “I came back a grown man.”

eventually only charged with carrying a concealed weapon.) “I don’t really like fighting, man,” he says, though he seems to suggest it comes with his occupation. “I’m 27, I’ve probably been in more fights in five years as a rapper than I was in the first 22 years in my life.”

DaBaby’s work ethic is so intense that he barely had time to mourn when his father died unexpectedly in June, just as “Suge” was becoming a pop hit. DaBaby is adamant that the music is the best place for him to talk about his dad, an Army vet who fought in Afghanistan.

On KIRK, DaBaby’s celebration of his triumphant year is offset by grappling with his father’s passing on “Intro,” which topped the RS 100 in October. “I ain’t spoken [about the death] when it happened,” he says. “I put shit in the song. It’s more therapeutic than anything.” C HARLES HOLMES

IMAGES BY LINDA MCCARTNEY © PAUL MCCARTNEY, 2

Before she married a Beatle, Linda McCartney was renowned photographer Linda Eastman. She was the first woman to shoot a cover for ROLLING STONE — of Eric Clapton — and photographed icons like Jimi Hendrix and Bob Dylan (and, yeah, the Beatles). From the 1970s until her death in 1998 at 56 from Linda breast cancer, Linda McCartney: The Polaroid turned her camera Diaries to her home life. $50 The new book Linda McCartney: The Polaroid Diaries features intimate snapshots of the McCartneys and friends like Pretenders frontwoman Chrissie Hynde, who wrote the book’s intro. “They often, like a demo tape, capture the vibe better than a proper recording,” Hynde writes of Linda’s Polaroids. She was one of the last people Linda photographed, in a portrait shot at Linda and Paul’s home. It was, naturally, a Polaroid. ANGIE MARTOCCIO

The Month in Conspiracies This fall brings four films based on true stories of crime and corruption. We look into just how deep the cover-up goes in each

By ANNA PEELE

ASK

CROZ Real-life advice from a guy who’s seen, done, and survived just about everything

ALL THE WAY TO THE TOP!

Please explain this whole monogamy thing. After I date a woman for a few months, I grow restless and I can’t wait to move on. Am I being unreasonable, or have I just not met the right woman?

—Fred, Santa Cruz, CA

The Report

Dark Waters

Release date November 15th

Release date November 22nd

This shockingly entertaining adaptation of a 6,700-page memo features Adam Driver as the aide of Sen. Dianne Feinstein (Annette Bening) who exposed the CIA’s torture program.

In Todd Haynes’ new film, Mark Ruffalo portrays the lawyer who discovered DuPont Chemical’s literally murderous water contamination, then won a $600 million class-action settlement.

Site of the cover-up The freaking White House

Site of the cover-up The boardroom of a $60 billion conglomerate

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: ATSUSHI NISHIJIMA/AMAZON STUDIOS; MARY CYBULSKI/ FOCUS FEATURES; PAUL SANCYA/AP IMAGES/SHUTTERSTOCK; JEFF GROS; DAN CALLISTER/ SHUTTERSTOCK; SHEERAN/BRANDT/SPLASH; NETFLIX; RAY TANG/SHUTTERSTOCK

Criminal mastermind Charles O. Holliday Former CEO, DuPont Chemical

C OV E R-U P L E V E L

Criminal mastermind George W. Bush Then-president of the United States

When you’re young, you’re trying to rub the velvet off your antlers. I did write “Triad,” and I do think there are other ways people can live. But it takes years to build that kind of relationship that’s worth it. To me, that “monogamy thing” is where I found the best part of my life. I can’t tell you it’s going to do it for you, but it’s definitely done it for me.

A few years ago, my son sold my 1954 Martin D-28 guitar for heroin, and I told him never to contact me again. He just reached out and says he’s been clean for a year and wants to reconnect. How do I let go of my resentment and let my son back into my life?

—Stanton, Chatham, NY

That’s what junkies do: They take your stuff, and they sell it. He probably doesn’t have anybody else that can help him out. I understand the love of guitars, but he’s your son and you have an obligation to him. I think you ought to try.

The Irishman

A Million Little Pieces

Release date November 1st

Release date December 6th

The cast of Martin Scorsese’s Netflix epic about the “disappearance” of union boss Jimmy Hoffa includes Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, who plays the titular man who “took care of” Hoffa.

Aaron Taylor-Johnson stars as writer James Frey, whose Oprah’s Book Clubapproved memoir of addiction and 12-step rehabilitation turned out to be partially fabricated.

Site of the cover-up The middle tier of low-level mobsters

Site of the cover-up A comfortable chair on the Oprah Winfrey Show soundstage

Criminal mastermind Frank Sheeran Hitman (allegedly!)

Criminal mastermind James Frey Author

I’m just a year older than you and a believer of the promise of the 1960s, but it’s getting harder every day. Did we accomplish anything that has lasted?

—Robert, Bloomfield Hills, MI

I don’t think the things we espoused in the 1960s were wrong. I think equality between human beings is correct. I think love is better than hatred, that peace is better than war. I feel discouraged currently, of course. But I still believe that we can fix this. Maybe that’s just me needing to believe that, but that is what I believe.

GOT A QUESTION FOR CROZ? Email AskCroz@Rollingstone.com PERSONAL GRIEVANCE

November 2019

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The Mix

PLAYLIST OUR FAVORITE SONGS AND VIDEOS RIGHT NOW

MY

LIST

7

2

MY FIVE FAVORITE R&B SONGS

By Huey Lewis Next year the veteran rock singer will release Weather, his first new album fronting Huey Lewis and the News since 2001.

RAY CHARLES

10

1. Jessie Reyez “Far Away” A Canadian-born singer with Colombian roots, Reyez delivers an impassioned R&B ballad about the debilitating feeling of trying to maintain a relationship with someone who’s stuck in the immigration system.

When she sings, “It’s been a hundred days since I’ve kissed your face,” your heart breaks with her.

2. Sleater-Kinney “Animal” This summer, right before they released their new album, The Center Won’t Hold, Sleater-Kinney announced the departure of powerhouse drummer Janet Weiss. Now, they’ve released one last song with Weiss, an explosive reminder of what this band can do at its punktorpedo best.

“Highest in the Room” Scott’s latest is a sumptuously stoned prograp odyssey that also feels like a quaveringly fearful

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with a crew of his friends, perfectly fitting the song’s splashy yet laid-back vibe. breakup song; “Hope I make it out of here,” he sings, amping up the emo aloneness that often plays at the margins of his epic escapism.

4. The Who “All This Music Will Fade” The Who are about to release their first album in 13 years, and their new single is a self-aware riff on the impermanence of music and musical relevance — delivered with a Who’s Next fury that makes these icons seem pretty darn relevant.

5. Omar Apollo “Kickback”

3. Travis Scott

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In the fun new video for this elegant soul tune, Mexican American crooner Omar Velasco (a.k.a. Omar Apollo) hangs out on a yacht

November 2019

the Making is a must-hear LP: This standout track opens as a meditation on jealousy and turns into a raging, inspiring assertion of power, pleasure, and pride.

6. Temples “You’re Either on Something” These Brits revive Sixties psychedelia with cute irony: “You’re either on something or you’re on to something,” they sing, sounding at once pie-eyed and side-eyed on this flower-rock opus.

9. Skegss “Save It for the Weekend” A slacker-rock summer jam that’s so slacker-y it came out in early autumn.

With a little more elbow grease they might have themselves a Weezer-ian power-pop hit.

7. Broken Bells “Good Luck” The Shins’ James Mercer and producer Danger Mouse reboot their side duo with a lushly brooding statement on life in our dark times. It’s paranoia rendered with impeccable pop smarts.

8. Young M.A “PettyWap” The fierce Brooklyn rapper’s new Herstory in

10. Beabadoobee For reviews, premieres, and more, go to Rolling Stone.com/ music

“I Wish I Was Stephen Malkmus” Gen Z rocker Bea Kristi had yet to be born when Malkmus was fronting indie-rock gods Pavement, but the 19-year-old nails their torpid grandeur like a Nineties kid at heart.

This is flat-out gospel. It was “Hallelujah, I Love Him So.” Ray changed “him” to “her,” and boom!

The beginning of R&B.

WILSON PICKETT “634-5789” This song is captured, not created. It has those little rough edges we miss today. It has all the grit in the world.

SOLOMON BURKE “Cry to Me” He could sing high and sing low, and his screams were just fantastic. The song has a Latin influence, which was all over early rock.

JACKIE WILSON “Lonely Teardrops” Jackie may have been the most dynamic performer of all time. Even James Brown couldn’t follow him.

THE RANCE ALLEN GROUP “Ain’t No Need of Crying” This is my favorite song. It was never a hit, but I used to hear it on the radio in the Bay Area. You’ve got to hear this to believe it.

FROM TOP, LEFT TO RIGHT: NIKKO LAMERE; JORDAN CURTIS HUGHES; STEPHEN LOVEKIN/”VARIETY”/SHUTTERSTOCK; JAMES MINCHIN III; ANDREW BOYLE; JOSH SIMPSON

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“Hallelujah, I Just Love Her So”

The Mix

THE MURDER MYSTERIES BEHIND ‘KNIVES OUT’ A DEAD BODY, a detective, a lot of A-list suspects — Knives Out (out November 27th) is director Rian Johnson’s attempt to bring back the old-fashioned whodunit. The Last Jedi and Looper director cast Daniel Craig as a sleuth investigating the homicide of a mystery author; Jamie Lee Curtis, Chris Evans, Don Johnson, Toni Collette, and Michael Shannon are family members with motives. “The world is thrown into moral chaos by a crime,” Johnson says of the genre.

“And there’s a comforting feeling knowing by the end an authority figure will stand in the library, whoever’s responsible will go to jail, and order will be restored.” Johnson took us through a few of the murder mysteries that influenced Knives Out. DAVID FEAR

Beck Hits ‘Escape’ The singer-songwriter hooks up with Pharrell for ‘Hyperspace,’ his new album on escapism

By ANDY GREENE

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HEN BECK FIRST got together with producer Pharrell Williams to craft most of his late-2019 LP, Hyperspace, he discovered they had slightly different ideas about the kind of album they were creating. “I wanted to create something like ‘Drop It Like It’s Hot,’ ” Beck says, referencing the 2004 hit that Pharrell produced for Snoop Dogg that features lyrics like, “G’s to the bizzack, now ladies here we gizzo.” “I think he was hearing something a little more singer-songwriter-y, though,” Beck clarifies.

They wound up fusing the two worlds, utilizing drum loops along with acoustic guitar and piano. The result is a collection of lush, atmospheric songs. “The more hybrid the music got, the more interesting it became,” says Beck, calling from a road trip across the Italian countryside. “We wanted to veer away from songs that were too introspective and let whatever happened happen.”

It was the polar opposite of the experience that Beck had creating his last album, 2017’s Colors, with producer Greg Kurstin. (Kurstin also co-produced a track on Hyperspace.) “That was an endless process,” says Beck. “It felt like a doctorate-studies program in crafting pop songs. I really wanted to explore and get lost in that. This one was off the cuff.”

Beck first heard Pharrell’s music while working on Midnight Vultures in 1998, and the Neptunes’

futuristic funk influence is felt on that record. But they didn’t start hanging out until 2012, right around the time that the producer was working on “Get Lucky” for Daft Punk and his solo crossover hit “Happy.” They started talking about recording an album, but their busy schedules meant it didn’t start happening until last year, in quick bursts of activity whenever Beck had downtime from his Colors world tour. “Pharrell works on instinct,” says Beck. “There wasn’t even a lot of discussion. We’d automatically get into the work and think, ‘How does this make my body feel?’ ” Beck kept the lyrics focused on the ways people leave behind day-to-day problems: drugs, money, art, religion. “I thought about this video game I played as a little kid called Asteroids,” he says. “If you were about to die, there was this button you would hit to escape and go somewhere else. I looked up the name of the button, and it was called ‘Hyperspace.’

Each song is coming out of that idea. It ends with ‘Everlasting Nothing,’ which is about the fact that whatever you build for yourself in life, obviously we are all reduced to the same thing at the end. We’re all in this together, no matter what.”

Beck spent the summer playing shows with Cage the Elephant, and he’s got festival dates on the books through the end of the year. Though he’s toured heavily over the past few years and plans to continue, he says he’s unlikely to play one of his classic albums straight through, as many of his peers have done in recent years. “I think if I had a Nevermind or OK Computer or This Is It, I might do something like that,” Beck says. “I’m still looking to make that definitive record.”

“Pharrell works on instinct. We’d automatically think, ‘How does this make my body feel?’ ”

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THE BOOK

Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case “Agatha Christie’s final Hercule Poirot book was published posthumously.

It’s set in the same manor house as his first case and ties up his entire career in a way that I find both resonant and really emotional. I had my cousin re-create the title font for Knives Out.”

THE MOVIE

Deathtrap “I’m a big fan of the three-people/one-location side genre of whodunits: a few characters stuck in a place and a murder attached to it. This is one of the best, starring Michael Caine, Dyan Cannon, and Superman himself, Christopher Reeve. Read nothing about the movie. Go in blind, and watch with friends.”

THE TV SHOW

Columbo “We can all do a Peter Falk coming-back-inthe-door impersonation. But if you haven’t been through the Columbo archives, the show always starts with the murder and who did it.

The tension is whether Columbo will catch them by the end of the hour. (Spoiler alert: He will!) On set, Jamie Lee Curtis revealed she played a waitress in one episode early in her career.”

RACHAEL WRIGHT/CAMERA PRESS/REDUX (BECK); LIONEL HAHN/SHUTTERSTOCK (JOHNSON); UNIVERSAL TV/KOBAL/SHUTTERSTOCK (“COLUMBO”)

IN THE STUDIO

The Mix

Big Boi at Stankonia with Eurasian eagleowls Hoodini (left) and Hootie Hoo, two of his four collaborator owl pets

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Month 2018

MY

OBSESSION A NEW MONTHLY SERIES IN WHICH ARTISTS SHARE THEIR NON-MUSICAL PASSIONS

Big Boi Wants to Keep These Owls ForeverEver “GIMME THAT BUTT!” Big Boi bellows

from behind the mixing board of his famed Atlanta studio, Stankonia. The call for butts is addressed to Hootie Hoo, a sleepy Eurasian eagle-owl perched next to him. Along with Hoodini, Simon, and Tula, Hootie is one of four pet owls the rapper lets roam freely around the space.

Not that there’s much “roaming” going on. “Once they perch, they’re there unless you’re gonna feed them or they see something run across the floor,” Big Boi says of his flock. “I can sit here and smoke 10 blunts and they won’t move.” He quickly clarifies: “I don’t smoke around no birds.”

Big Boi developed his obsession with the nocturnal bird a few years ago, when his assistant introduced him to Roy Lau, an exotic-animal trainer. Big Boi fell in love with owls’ mythical “wisdom.” “That’s when Simon came into the picture,” he says of his first pet owl.

Though the birds aren’t particularly emotive — their expressions range from “slightly annoyed” to “vaguely disgruntled” — they have distinct personalities.

“Tula is the chillest,” Big Boi says. “Hoodini is very rambunctious.” Owls’ ability to connect despite limited facial movement inspired the much more excitable Big Boi to write an upcoming children’s book on how people with autism communicate.

“I have family members and friends with children on the spectrum,” he says.

Though his experience has been positive, Big Boi cautions, “I don’t encourage everybody to [own owls]. You gotta have the space, time, and knowledge of the bird,” which, Lau says, can live for 70 years in captivity. The owls sleep at Lau’s bird habitat, but Big Boi has an official owl license and is constructing a permanent home at his 40-acre ranch. He’s even bought a deep freezer to hold the dead mice he feeds them. “My wife is creeped out by that shit,” he says. BRITTANY SPANOS

PHOTOGRAPH BY

Jorge Sigala | 27

The Mix

Baker onstage in 1972

TRIBUTE

Ginger’s Wild Rhythms Ginger Baker redefined rock drumming. The rest of his life was as intense and uncompromising as his music

By DAVID BROWNE

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JORGEN ANGEL/REDFERNS/GETTY IMAGES

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HEN GINGER BAKER was a teenager, his life was transformed him. In Cream, Eric Clapton felt it was impossible to give Baker any direction in two lasting ways. While at a party around age 15, he was musically. “Ginger would simply not accept it,” he said in 1988. “It would be too encouraged to sit down at a drum kit and play; classmates much of a battle for me to take it on.” had noticed he would drum on his desktop and thought Some in Baker’s family take issue with his curmudgeonly reputation. “Ginhe’d be good at it. Before long he had given up dreams of ger’s ‘wild man’ image and larger-than-life colorful lifestyle should not be given being a pilot or a championship bicyclist for a musician’s life. Around the same precedence over his lasting musical legacy,” insists his daughter, writer Nettie time, he belatedly read a letter his late father, a bricklayer who had died in Baker. “It is without doubt entertaining to muse over bad decision-making, itWorld War II, had left for him: “Well, Peter,” it read in part, self the result of childhood trauma, sudden fame, and drug addressing his son by his birth name, “I want you to grow up addiction, but it should be remembered that while a handas a man able to hold your own ground, to learn how to use ful of those closest to him may have been at the ‘sharp end,’ “He was very hard your fists, they are your best pals so often.” countless others were inspired and enthralled by his music.” to get along with,” Baker — who died at 80 of complications from chronic Baker’s music and his volatility are equal parts of his legasays Geddy Lee obstructive pulmonary disease on October 6th in Kent, cy. “He was always a wild creature to me, and obviously very of Rush. “But his England — fulfilled both of those legacies. Starting with hard to get along with,” says Rush frontman Geddy Lee, who rhythms were Cream, Baker revolutionized rock drumming. Incorporating saw Cream live as a teenager in Canada. “But his rhythms jazz rhythms, his trademark double-bass drums, and instruwere unbelievable, and very few people realize how musical unbelievable.” ments like tympani, he added both a lighter and a heavier he was and how much influence he had on Cream songs. He touch to everything from Cream classics like “Sunshine of was the archetypal rock drummer.”

Your Love” to later work with Public Image Ltd. With his 1970 solo album, Ginger Of course, Baker would take issue with that compliment. “Oh, for God’s sake, Baker’s Air Force, which blended Afrobeat rhythms with big-band jazz and rock I’ve never played rock,” he said in 2013. “Cream was two jazz players and a blues balladry, he helped introduce Western fans to the concept of world music. “He guitarist playing improvised music. . . . All that stuff I did on the drums in Cream was very inventive,” Ringo Starr tells ROLLING STONE. “If you listen to Cream, didn’t come from drugs, either. It was from me. It was jazz.” you can see there’s something else coming through.”

Baker was also one of rock’s biggest, crankiest personalities — a volatile and JAZZ, IN FACT, offered Baker an exit ramp from a lonely childhood. Peter Edward often aggressive madcap with a wild shrub of red hair (which gave him his nickBaker arrived August 19th, 1939, and the death of his father when Peter was four name) and a penchant for insulting (or brawling with) anyone who annoyed was just one of many scarring moments during his school years. [Cont. on 30]

CL E R MON T K . Y.

U. S .

EVEN THE MAN WHO HAS EVERYTHING SOMETIMES NEEDS A REFILL.

EVERY BIT EARNED

KNOB CREEK® KENTUCKY STRAIGHT BOURBON WHISKEY AND STRAIGHT RYE WHISKEY 50% ALC./VOL. ©2019 KNOB CREEK DISTILLING COMPANY, CLERMONT, KY.

The Mix [Cont. from 28] “People didn’t like me,” he said later. “I suppose I was a strange fish.” His only vivid memories of his father were the times, he wrote, “when he came back on home leave” from the British army.

As a teen, Baker met drummer Phil Seamen, whom Baker would always count among his influences, along with jazz greats like Art Blakey and Max Roach. Seamen furthered his student’s knowledge of jazz and introduced him to African rhythms (and heroin). Baker played in several jazz bands, and later replaced Charlie Watts in Alexis Korner’s Blues Incorporated, where he met bassist Jack Bruce; both left to form another band, the Graham Bond Organisation, before hooking up with Clapton to start Cream in 1966.

One of rock’s first supergroups, Cream crystallized Baker’s sound. “For my dad, the drumming was an integral part of the music, like the backward beat in ‘Sunshine of Your Love,’” says his son Kofi, who was taught (often very sternly) by his father.

“He didn’t play the drums as a backbeat; he would complement the music. When I was 15, I said, ‘What about spinning sticks?’

He said, ‘I see you spinning sticks, I’ll fuckin’ brain you — put your energy into what you’re playing, not how you look!’ My dad always said that the showmanship is the music.”

As tight as they could be as a rhythm section, Baker and Bruce fought often — at least once onstage — and Baker’s heroin usage didn’t help. “Well, he’s just crazy!” Clapton told ROLLING STONE in 1970. “He’s totally off his nut. If I joined a band of his now, I’d probably go ’round the twist. I really do love him as a guy, but it’s easier for me to love him when I’m not working with him.”

For his part, Baker seemed partly relieved when the trio broke up in 1968: “I just couldn’t stand the volume, and the last year of Cream damaged my ears permanently,” he wrote in his memoir, Hellraiser.

Baker’s life only got wilder in the decades that followed. After the collapse of Blind Faith — his band with Clapton, Steve Winwood, and Ric Grech — and the death of his friend Jimi Hendrix, Baker later told ROLLING STONE he “had to get the fuck out of London.” In 1971, he drove across the Sahara desert (the trip was also filmed for a doc) and wound up in Nigeria; there, he built a studio and became immersed in the world of polo, buying horses and playing the sport himself from time to time. Into the following decade, he became a gateway into world beat, working with the likes of Fela Kuti and deepening his passion for polyrhythms. Baker was continually drawn back to rock, if only to earn a much-needed paycheck; in the Seventies and Eighties, he played with hard-rock bands like the Baker Gurvitz Army and Hawkwind, but on at least one occasion he also wound up selling drugs as well as taking them.

In the mid-Eighties, producer Bill Laswell helped rescue Baker from near-obscurity by featuring him on Public Image Ltd.’s Album. When John Lydon mentioned (possibly in jest) that he wanted Baker on a PiL record, Laswell went in search of the drummer, eventually finding him in a small mountain home near Tuscany. “He was kind of retired,” says Laswell. “He didn’t have a telephone or electricity. He had this huge truck he would drive down on the road with no guardrail or fence. It was terrifying, but he always made it.” Laswell brought Baker to New York, where he added what Laswell calls “that shuffling tomtom” beat to the album. Lydon called Baker “a monster-ragingcrazy-loony” he could relate to and also “loved” him.

That experience seemed to revitalize Baker, at least artistically, and he went on to make Afrobeat-inspired albums like 1990’s Middle Passage. In the late Eighties, he moved to L.A. in part to pursue acting. According to Laswell, Baker had given up heroin but was still dealing with cocaine addiction and at one point even placed an ad in a local paper looking for drumming work.

In 1993, Cream reunited onstage during their induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. That same year, Baker moved to Colorado, settling into a ranch and founding the Mile High Polo Club (fellow iconoclast Hunter S. Thompson was a board mem-

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Five Great Ginger Baker Tracks “TOAD” Cream (1967) Before “Moby Dick,” “In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida,” or Ringo Starr’s feature on “The End,” there was “Toad,” the last track on Cream’s debut, Fresh Cream, and a performance that set a new benchmark for the rock drum solo.

“SUNSHINE OF YOUR LOVE” Cream (1967) Instead of adding a forceful backbeat to this song’s iconic Jack Bruce-penned riff, Baker opts for a minimal, laidback pulse on the toms, a rhythm that caresses rather than pummels.

“LET’S START” Fela Kuti and the Africa 70 (1971) Legendary drummer Tony Allen once said that Baker “understands the African beat more than any other Westerner.” Baker’s uncanny grasp of Afrobeat’s lithe pulse is on full display on this 1971 live track.

“EASE” Public Image Ltd. (1986) The context might be a surprise — a midEighties effort by John Lydon’s futuristic postpunk outfit — but once that swaggery shuffle kicks in, there’s no question who’s behind the kit.

“RAMBLER” Ginger Baker Trio (1994) Baker always flaunted his jazz roots, but he was well into his fifties by the time he put out an album in the style under his own name.

He sounds utterly at home within this track’s jazz-meets-rock-meetsAmericana zone.

ber). Immigration troubles led Baker to leave the States, and he eventually moved to South Africa.

In 2005, Cream finally got together for full reunion concerts in New York and London, but by the last show, Baker and Bruce were feuding. The reunion replenished Baker’s bank account, but according to Kofi, the funds only went so far. “After the reunion, they made all that money and he blew it again, the same way he blew it the first time,” says Kofi. “Buying polo horses and starting a club in South Africa and not making any money, which is exactly what he did with Cream in the first place. After Cream and Blind Faith, he wasn’t making any money and he was just spending, so he did exactly the same thing again.”

By the late 2000s, the abuse Baker had inflicted on himself over the decades began to wear him down. Writer Jay Bulger visited him for a 2009 ROLLING STONE profile [“The Devil and Ginger Baker,” RS 1085] and found him crankier than ever — but also frail. “He was taking all types of morphine and his back was messed up,” says Bulger. “He was just not in good shape.”

In 2011, he returned to London — partly, Kofi says, because of England’s national health care system — along with his fourth wife, Kudzai Machokoto, a nurse from Zimbabwe. A year later came the release of the documentary Beware of Mr. Baker, directed by Bulger and based in part on his ROLLING STONE piece. While making the movie, Baker got so angry with Bulger that he broke Bulger’s nose with a cane, all of it caught on camera. On the night of the film’s European premiere, Baker insisted on smoking in the theater’s green room — which so incensed the organizers that they almost canceled the screening. The premiere proceeded only after Bulger convinced Baker to go out for dinner. “He screamed at me for hours, and I got totally wasted just sitting there taking abuse,” says Bulger.

In 2013, Baker told ROLLING STONE he was coping with degenerative osteoarthritis and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. He continued to work, releasing an excellent jazz album, Why?, in 2014 and partaking in a rock fantasy camp in Los Angeles the following year. But in 2016, he canceled a tour over “serious heart problems” and underwent open-heart surgery later that year. When he toured Japan with a jazz band, he would have to pause between songs to catch his breath.

In later years, Baker seemed to have mellowed — somewhat.

Beneath the gruff exterior lay what Winwood calls “a very sensitive human being with a heart of gold.” Once he finally watched Beware of Mr. Baker, the drummer emailed Bulger to tell him how much he disliked it and that Bulger was a “disgusting excuse for a human being.” But later that same day, he changed his tune and wrote back: “I guess I jumped the gun here. . . . actually film has been incredibly well received so I should say well done.”

About two weeks before he died, Baker was admitted to a Kent hospital. Hospital staff told Kofi that vital organs were shutting down, and Clapton came to visit. The guitarist had long been supportive of Baker, even reportedly helping him pay his rent. As Clapton told RS in 1991, “It’s a bit like a marriage that you walked away from. Something about these people gets under your skin, and they’re part of your life.”

On September 30th, Kofi Baker visited his father. The two had been estranged for years; in a 2018 interview with ROLLING STONE, Kofi admitted, “He’s not in my life. He’s not in my thoughts. The only time I think about him is when people bring him up.” By the time Kofi saw his dad in the hospital, the elder Baker could barely talk and was mostly nibbling on biscuits and drinking tea. “It was hard seeing my dad like that — he was always such a fiery guy,” says Kofi. “He couldn’t talk back to me.

It was me talking and him listening.”

During his visit, Kofi mentioned his tribute band, the Cream Experience, which also includes Bruce’s son Malcolm. He told his dad they’d just learned “Blue Condition,” from Disraeli Gears. “I said, ‘Dad, I’m carrying on and taking everything you taught me and keeping it going as long as I can,’ ” says Kofi. “I’m used to my dad blowing me off, but he was just a different person. His eyes lit up and he laughed. It was just amazing.”

I

N 1993, THE MEMBERS of Weezer traveled to New York to meet Ric Ocasek, who was slated to produce their debut album. “He was one of the most significant icons of our childhood,” says bassist Matt Sharp, who had grown up seeing Ocasek’s hits in rotation on MTV. “I can’t think of videos without thinking of him.”

Arriving at Ocasek’s Manhattan address, the bandmates found themselves entering a stately 1850s townhouse with 20-foot-high ceilings, an elevator, a pink pool table, and portraits of Ocasek done by Andy Warhol hanging on the walls. But that was nothing compared to the disorienting feeling of meeting the New Wave icon, who greeted them wearing one of his many elegant suit jackets — like he’d walked out of the video for “Magic” or “You Might Think.” “It would be easy to equate us with four Charlies in the Chocolate Factory,” Sharp recalls. “Ric seemed like he wasn’t of this Earth.”

It was an image well known to millions of people. With his pitch-black hair, pale complexion, and razor-thin frame, Ocasek, who died at 75 on September 15th, was one of the most recognizable figures of the Eighties.

“I always said he looked like an upside-down exclamation mark,” says Paulina Porizkova, the Czech-born model who was married to Ocasek from 1989 until their separation in 2017.

His music fit his look: sleek yet moody, charming yet detached. As the main songwriter and guitarist and sometime lead singer of the Cars, Ocasek (pronounced “oh-cass-ek”) mainlined the jittery ebullience of Buddy Holly and the dark punk energy of Lou Reed into the Top 40, while spiking his sleek tunes with barbed lyrics: “I needed someone to bleed,” the Cars offered on 1978’s “Just What I Needed.”

“If the goal was to have great success making pop music with a sense of irony,” says Cars guitarist Elliot Easton, “then mission accomplished, right?”

Yet for all the joy he gave to music fans, Ocasek led a somewhat troubled life that included a difficult childhood, three marriages, and the collapse of the Cars, which Ocasek disbanded in 1988, walking away when he was at the height of his fame. “He was somebody who really wanted to be happy and really tried for happiness,” says Porizkova, “but underneath it all was a lot of pain. . . . His pop element was ‘please like me,’ and his dark lyrics were like the hurt little boy.”

Even Cars keyboardist Greg Hawkes, who met Ocasek in the early Seventies, says he never fully knew his onand-off bandmate. “In spite of being friends with him and a collaborator

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Ocasek in 1980

TRIBUTE

New Wave Mystery Man Ric Ocasek’s hits with the Cars defined New Wave — but there was hurt beneath the sleek sound

By DAVID BROWNE for years and years, he was also in certain aspects of his life extremely private,” Hawkes says. “There were a lot of things that were never discussed.”

BORN RICHARD THEODORE OTCASEK in Baltimore on March 23rd, 1944, Ocasek grew up in the kind of home that can create an inwardly directed artist. “His mom drank a lot and his fa-

ther was pretty cold to him,” says Porizkova. “His childhood was not a good one.” During his teen years, his family moved to Cleveland, where his dad worked as a computer analyst for NASA. After graduating high school, Ocasek enrolled in two Ohio colleges, without graduating, and eventually turned his attention to music. “I thought that was the thing to do,” he

told ROLLING STONE in 1979. “Sometimes I’d put together a band just to hear my songs.” In the early Sixties, he married his first wife, Constance Campbell; he was married to his second wife, Suzanne LaPointe, from 1971 until 1988.

On the Ohio rock scene, he met Ben Orr, who joined Ocasek’s band ID Nirvana. By the early Seventies, Ocasek had relocated to Massachusetts, where he persuaded Orr to move and join a Crosby, Stills and Nash-style trio he’d formed named Milkwood; the band put out one album, 1972’s How’s the Weather, more noteworthy for the soft-rock mustache Ocasek sports on its cover than for the music inside.

He and Orr started a series of new bands. But after Aerosmith’s managers harshly critiqued one of those acts, the Steely Dan-ish Cap’n Swing, Ocasek took charge and cleaned house; Hawkes (who had played on the Milkwood album) was recruited on keyboards, along with drummer David Robinson, formerly of groundbreaking proto-punk band the Modern Lovers.

In late 1976, the Cars were ready to go.

Ocasek had finally found the right voice and image, even if Orr often sang lead. (Ocasek, then in his thirties, also shaved five years from his age.) “He developed that guitar style, those clicky eighth notes you can hear on ‘My Best Friend’s Girl,’ ” Hawkes says. “And his vocal style got quirkier. He developed that Buddy Holly hiccup phrasing.”

Soon a demo of “Just What I Needed” was getting played on Boston radio, leading to a deal with Elektra Records.

Produced by Queen collaborator Roy Thomas Baker, who went on to work with the band on several more records, 1978’s The Cars went platinum six times and spawned the hit singles “Just What I Needed,” “My Best Friend’s Girl,” and “Good Times Roll.” Yet the Cars’ leader quickly began to chafe at the demands of stardom. Hawkes says Ocasek was embarrassed by the simplicity of later hits like “Shake It Up.” And as an audio control freak, he was never fond of playing live. “He was definitely not one of those ‘Hello, Cleveland!’ kind of guys,” says Easton. “Ric was much happier in the recording studio.”

In 1984, the Cars reached the peak of their success with their fifth LP, Heartbeat City, and its hits “You Might Think” and “Drive.” But the album’s nearly yearlong recording with pop-metal producer Robert “Mutt” Lange left Ocasek drained. Tensions within the band began to escalate when the Cars made their next record, 1987’s Door to Door. “Ben and Ric were not getting along,” Hawkes admits.

“The recording sessions were basically unpleasant.”

© LYNN GOLDSMITH/ZUMA PRESS

The Mix

ED PERLSTEIN/REDFERNS/GETTY IMAGES

Around that time, Easton stopped

by Electric Lady, the Greenwich Village studio that was Ocasek’s favorite place to work. As the two listened to live Cars recordings, Ocasek dropped a bombshell. “He just kind of said, ‘You know, I think I’m going to leave the group,’ ” recalls Easton. “All the blood went to my feet.”

In 1989, Ocasek married Porizkova, whom he’d met years earlier on the set of the “Drive” video; their first son, Jonathan, arrived in 1993, and Oliver followed in 1998. The family settled into their New York townhouse, where Ocasek installed a studio in the basement. Tellingly, the door to his workspace was often propped open with the MTV “Moonman” statuette the Cars had won for Video of the Year in 1984. Recalls engineer Chris Shaw, “I’m sure he was grateful for the award, but it didn’t mean much.”

With the Cars over, Ocasek made several solo albums and devoted more time to producing and mentoring punk and alt-rock bands, including Weezer, Bad Religion, Guided by Voices, Le Tigre, Bad Brains, and Nada Surf. “He worked with people and changed their lives,” says Sharp. “It’s not an understatement to say that my life and all the lives of the guys in Weezer would be completely different without having that connection with Ric.” Asked by RS in 1997 about a Cars reunion, Ocasek replied, “I have no interest. I’d rather paint, or write, or do anything else. It’s something that was already done, and those records are already locked away. . . . As a rule, I’d rather live in the future than the past.”

He was drawn back into the Cars’ world when Orr was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and the two reconciled shortly before Orr’s death in 2000. “It really scared and hurt Ric,” Porizkova says. “He wrote that song about Ben, ‘Silver’ [on Ocasek’s 2005 solo album, Nexterday], but I think that was the only time I really heard him say how he felt about Ben.” The surviving Cars eventually reconvened for a new album, 2011’s Move Like This, and Ocasek even agreed to do a brief tour. “Our boys never got to see him as a rock star,” says Porizkova. “And he wanted them to see what Dad did. It was really sweet.” But when some of the old band tensions resurfaced, Ocasek decided to limit the reunion tour to about a month. “It was hard to get him to agree to do even whatever we did,” says Hawkes. “We were just getting into the rhythm of it, and it was over.”

As Ocasek approached 70, his life and career seemed in a state of flux.

He reunited with Weezer to produce 2014’s Everything Will Be Alright in the

End. But changes in the music business left him disillusioned (in 2003, he briefly took a job as an A&R executive at Elektra), and creative frustrations began to surface. In 2015, two years before the couple separated, Ocasek played Porizkova some of his last recordings — half a dozen new songs in which she felt he revealed more of himself. “It got me so excited,” she says. “It was entirely new and different. Still very him and very hooky, but it was like him taken to the extremes — the sweetness of his music with pretty dark lyrics.” Despite her encouragement, he couldn’t finish the album.

“It’s not coming to me,” he told her.

In April 2018, Ocasek found himself playing with Hawkes, Easton, and Robinson one last time when the Cars were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. “It’s funny, because after that night, I really had a sort of sense of finality about it,” says Hawkes. “I didn’t realize quite how final it really was.”

Easton says the band did “a lot of healing” after its induction; he and Ocasek even began exchanging punny texts.

In early September this year, Ocasek underwent surgery (Porizkova declines to give details on the procedure). She and their two sons took turns tending to him as he recuperated at home. On the morning of September 15th, Porizkova peered into his bedroom to find him in his usual sleeping position: on his back, “one of his hands elegantly folded beneath his chin,” she says.

About an hour later, she checked on him again. “I touched his cheek, and it was like touching marble,” she says. Realizing he had passed, she summoned family members (including sons from his previous marriages), who gathered around Ocasek’s bed to say goodbye before Porizkova called 911.

The New York medical examiner’s office attributed Ocasek’s death to natural causes related to heart disease, with emphysema listed as a factor.

Porizkova says she remains “baffled” by the pronouncement because Ocasek gave up smoking 14 years ago and only suffered from a mild case of emphysema. She calls his death “a fucking shock.”

On the day of his New York funeral, Porizkova came across the lyrics Ocasek had written for “Soon,” a ballad on Move Like This that felt like a sequel to “Drive.” But reading them anew, she realized that buried in its pretty melody was a message to her: “I know what I put you through/The time will run away from us like time it will do.”

“I had never really paid attention to it,” she says. “It was a song he had written for me, and it was kind of a hard look into the future. I thought, ‘Oh, my God.’ It really got me.”

TRIBUTE

Hunter in 1977

1 9 4 1 -2 0 1 9

Robert Hunter Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart remembers the band’s longtime lyricist

I

REMEMBER THE DAY my young son asked, “Who is Hunter?” Hunter was reclusive and anti-social. So many people wanted a piece of him, but he didn’t want publicity and didn’t want to be part of the machine.

But I said to my son, “Look around you — he’s everywhere.

He helped build this house you live in. He spun the greatest stories and songs and images that could ever be. He turned the Grateful Dead from a blues band into mythic status.”

In the beginning, Jerry [Garcia] called him and asked him to come up and write some words for us. Jerry couldn’t write words, nor did he try. But he and Hunter were the voice of each other. In the studio, I would sit off to the side while Jerry plunked around on a keyboard and Hunter would do his little dance. He got up on one foot and did a little jig, with one foot firmly on the ground and the other bouncing up and down. Once you saw him do that, you knew he was on to something.

If you listen to his words, you can hear our struggles.

Hunter was turning those moments into prose and poetry.

The night we were busted in New Orleans was an infamous night, and Hunter made it into a song, “Truckin’.” I had a water pump at my ranch that I had recorded and I said, “Here, write something to this.” He wrote “Playing in the Band,” which was basically: No one can tell us what to do or how to do it. When he wrote “Touch of Grey,” we were struggling, but it became an anthem to us. It perked us up.

Losing Hunter was quite a shock. Speaking for myself, a part of us died with Hunter. The payoff is when I see all those kids in front of me at Dead and Co. shows. They know all the lyrics. Hunter was very modest, but I would tell him about that and he would have that little smile and say something like, “I told you they were good.”

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The Mix PROFILE

Edward Norton’s 20-Year Noir The actor-director on bringing his decades-inthe-making ‘Motherless Brooklyn’ to the screen

By DAVID FEAR

E

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Norton in Los Angeles

be in the Ed Norton business, but . . . ” He snaps a button, and laughs. “It took a while to find our champions.

“I mean, it’s not like I haven’t been doing other things,” he adds, digging intently into an omelet. “I’d been making movies. I’d written scripts. But I kept coming back to this. There is a certain kind of just, like, discomfort I feel with not completing a thing.”

Motherless Brooklyn certainly wasn’t a left-field choice for adaptation. Lethem’s book about private detective Lionel Essrog, a minor-league gumshoe — who, notably, suffers from Tourette’s syndrome — trying to solve his mentor’s murder, won the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Gold Dagger Award for crime fiction. After four

well-received novels, this offbeat take on a pulp-fiction staple turned the author into a literary celebrity.

As Lethem’s stock was rising, Norton had been coming off an incredible hot streak, starting with a breakout role as a stuttering teenage altar boy in 1996’s Primal Fear and peaking with his portrayal of a neo-Nazi skinhead in American History X in 1998. Thanks to those roles, he’d already garnered two Oscar nominations before he’d turned 30. His immersive, Method-y approach to parts had people hailing him as the new Brando.

Norton knew Lethem’s early work, and they had friends in common; he remembers being tipped off by a mutual acquaintance that the writer was

putting finishing touches on “this new thing about a Tourettic detective. They were like, ‘You need to check this out.

You would really like this character.’ ” He reached out to Lethem and got a copy in galley form. He thought, “I know this character. This is right in my sweet spot.”

So when the folks at New Line Cinema asked him what he wanted to do now that he had the clout that comes with being an Academy Award-nominated movie star, Norton immediately mentioned the book. Only he didn’t just want to play Lionel; he also wanted to write the script. Maybe direct it, too. The studio purchased the rights.

Suddenly, Norton had his next project.

Or rather, his “next” project.

PHOTOGRAPH BY Amy Harrity

GROOMING BY NATALIA BRUSCHI

DWARD NORTON is fidgeting with the Western-style pearl snaps on his white collared shirt. You wouldn’t call it a tic — though nervous tics are one of many deeply researched subjects he’s able to wax about at a moment’s notice. It’s more like a subconscious tell that he’s about to say something he feels is very important.

And when Norton starts to get worked up about an issue, which is often — his reputation for intensity is well-earned — he has a habit of punctuating his statements with a passionate, percussive clicking and unclicking of the top button. America worships power and elevates bullies. Snap. Moviegoers are so used to getting fed the equivalent of high-fructose corn syrup that they can’t taste anymore. Snap.

New York is the ultimate American melting-pot city, and look what happened to it in the Fifties when one man had unchecked power. Snap.

The 50-year-old writer-director-actor is tucked into a plush leather booth at the Knickerbocker, a West Village restaurant that looks like it’s been timewarped out of the Eisenhower era: Al Hirschfeld sketches on the wall, Black Angus meatloaf on the menu, bartenders who definitely make a mean martini. Norton likes this place. It feels very Old New York, which is one of numerous personal obsessions — including political mechanisms, the power of the movies, and Robert Moses — that drove the star to spend nearly two decades bringing Motherless Brooklyn, Jonathan Lethem’s 1999 postmodern detective novel, to the screen. With the finished film finally hitting theaters on November 1st (with a cast featuring Norton, Bruce Willis, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Willem Dafoe, and Alec Baldwin), he’s waited a long time to sit in this monument to a bygone era and discuss his pet project in the past tense.

“When you go to people and say, ‘I want to make an epic film set in New York in the 1950s, with a lead character who’s part Jake Gittes and part Forrest Gump. . . .,’ ” Norton says, “let’s just say a lot of folks will tell you, ‘We’d love to

There were a few hurdles before Norton could get started. Like his schedule. “We were just starting to rehearse Fight Club,” he says. “I knew that was going to take over a year. I had a plan to direct Keeping the Faith. I knew it’d be a while before I could realistically get to it. But I already had an idea about what I wanted to do.”

Norton loved the lead character, an “afflicted underdog” who played off the traditional Bogart-style detective.

But the book took place in the present day, and the actor felt that trying to set a film version about a gumshoe — even one who blurted out obscene non sequiturs — in the Clinton era would risk sarcasm. “I told Jonathan that if you tried to do it in the Nineties on film,

in early 2001. “I prefer it when movies aren’t the Classics Illustrated version of a book,” the author says. “I thought, ‘He’s going to make an interesting film out of this.’ And then I went through years of thinking, ‘Oh, this isn’t going to happen, is it?’ Many, many years.”

Former New Line executive Toby Emmerich remembers when his longtime friend Norton first pitched the idea of a throwback Motherless Brooklyn right after the company bought the rights. He also remembers a September 2001 meeting at New Line president Bob Shaye’s house on Long Island where the three of them were swimming in the Atlantic Ocean and Shaye suddenly said, “ ‘OK, Ed, what’s going on? It takes 12 weeks to write a script;

The Range and Rage of Edward Norton He’s played killers, FBI profilers, illusionists, an Incredible Hulk and some of the angriest young men ever to scream onscreen.

Here’s a quick breakdown of four of our favorite Norton roles.

Primal Fear 1996 Norton instantly made a name for himself with his first screen role, as a 19-year-old altar boy accused of murder. It earned him his first of three Oscar nominations.

CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: GLEN WILSON/2019 WARNER BROS.; RON PHILLIPS/PARAMOUNT; 20TH CENTURY FOX; TOUCHSTONE PICTURES; INDIAN PAINTBRUSH

Norton as Lionel, with Dafoe

it could end up feeling like The Blues Brothers,” Norton says. “Like retro hipster satire. He agreed that irony was not the angle. There’s a Fifties gestalt to the book, so why not set the movie in that decade? He liked that a lot.”

Moving the story back into the past also allowed Norton to add a new, era-appropriate element. In Lethem’s novel, Lionel tangles with mobsters and a mysterious Japanese corporation; for the movie, however, Norton wanted to introduce a character named Moses Randolph, a bureaucratic bully who lords over New York’s urban-development departments. He’s a clear stand-in for Robert Moses, the “master builder” who transformed the landscape of the Big Apple and turned entire neighborhoods into racial ghettos. Norton had read Robert Caro’s book The Power Broker, and saw how it detailed a secret history of the city.

The idea of making a Moses avatar the heavy in the story — of examining how, in Norton’s1 words, “from 1928 to 1968, New York was essentially run by Darth Vader” — appealed to him.

It also appealed to Lethem, who gave the OK to Norton’s radical revision of Motherless Brooklyn’s storyline

it’s been a few years now, and we have other directors interested in the material.’ Edward said, ‘Give me until Christmas.’ Come December, we still didn’t have a script — but he turned in 25 or 30 pages, and it’s excellent. It was enough for us to say, ‘Keep writing.’ We figured he’d finish it up soon.”

Except Norton found himself up against a key roadblock: namely, that he didn’t quite know how to solve the new mystery at the center of his revamped story. “Looking back, I think it took me a while to figure out how to deal with this complex history and make things murky but not too murky.

All I know is, I got blocked for a while and kept picking it back up and putting it away.” Other acting gigs came his way. He wrote an entire miniseries about the Lewis and Clark expedition, which he still hopes to make. Talk of maybe doing Motherless as a streaming series came and went. When interviewers asked when he’d get around to making the film, he’d say, “Soon.”

In the meantime, Norton kept researching. He studied documentaries on Tourette’s, noting how each person manifested different symptoms. He remembered a cab driver he encoun-

Fight Club 1999 David Fincher’s cult film cast Norton as a frustrated man liberated by his fists.

No actor has ever literally beat himself up onscreen with such style or grace.

25th Hour 2002 Norton is a drug dealer prepping to do hard time in Spike Lee’s heartfelt paean to post-9/11 NYC. The star’s long anti-New York screed remains a hilariously profane, epically toxic rant.

Moonrise Kingdom 2012 Wes Anderson enlisted Norton as a scoutmaster who’s looking for an AWOL kid and who gets to utter the immortal line “Jiminy Cricket, he flew the coop!”

tered a few times as a college student, who would uncontrollably yell the word “if.” He’d met a litigator in New York with Tourette’s who’d stretch his neck and jaw — at the Knickerbocker, Norton demonstrates the double tic, which he’d eventually borrow for Lionel — and made a note of it. “It’s so much more than just vocal outbursts of shit-fuck-piss,” he says.

Then, around 2012, he figured out what he calls “the mechanism of the mystery.” The dam burst, and he finished a draft that tied together all the strands of race, politics, power, and noirish thriller. Only he was a little worried that the story he wanted to tell — about the way the One Percent operate without accountability — felt out of sync with the moment. “Obama was being inaugurated for his second term,” Norton says. “A lot of the coastal cognoscenti believed we were entering this post-racial utopia with all of this other shit in the rearview mirror. Then the 2016 election happened.”

Suddenly, Norton found himself with a highly politicized David vs. Goliath tale that couldn’t have seemed more resonant. Emmerich, by then the chairman of Warner Bros., told him they could make it for the right price, so Norton figured out how to do period New York for under $26 million. And Emmerich was adamant that Norton direct it. “He didn’t need a ballast, the way some actor-directors do,” Emmerich says. “He’s his own tough critic, his own reality check. I always thought he’d make something singular, unique, and special. And I think he did.”

Though the production wasn’t without problems — a fire on one of the film’s sets in 2018 resulted in a fatality and pending lawsuits — Norton was finally able to get his longstanding pet project made. (After he showed it to Lethem, the actor says, the author was “prostrate with happiness.”) “I think I needed two decades with it,” Norton says. “I don’t think that even 10 years ago I would have had the sense of how important something like empathy would be to our society. And the piece really is about empathy. It’s about how we’re all in this together.

“There’s a line in the film where someone asks Lionel, ‘What is with you?’ ” Norton says. “And he says, ‘Let’s just say that an unfinished puzzle makes my head hurt.’ That’s me. I share with him a certain fixation with things in that I can’t stop twisting the puzzle around in my head.

“It feels like an itch has finally stopped,” he adds. “I feel a sense of liberation. When I look at it, I think, ‘We set out to do what we wanted to do.’ ” Norton puts his hands down on the table. He’s finally stopped fidgeting.

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CHARTS THE BIGGEST ARTISTS, ALBUMS, AND SONGS OF TODAY

The Road to Number One TAYLOR SWIFT AND POST MALONE each soared to the top of the RS 200 Chart this summer — but they took very different paths to get there. Swift’s path was more traditional, Malone’s more modern.

Together, they typify the fact that there are more ways than ever to listen to music. We broke down the unique scenarios that helped Swift’s Lover and Post’s Hollywood’s Bleeding scale the charts. By EMILY BL A K E

TAYLOR’S METHOD? SELL, SELL, SELL

POST MALONE: STREAM ON

TAYLOR SWIFT preceded her seventh studio album, Lover, with a steady stream of singles beginning with April’s “Me!” There was also a massive marketing campaign, including a T-shirt/album bundle for Capital One cardholders and a deal with Target to sell four deluxe versions. This kind of promotional strategy may sound standard, but in the age of surprise LPs and albums marketed as playlists, it’s a bit old-fashioned.

For Swift, though, old-fashioned worked. Lover shot to Number One on the RS 200, with nearly 1 million album units (ROLLING STONE’s custom metric), and it’s tops in the U.S. this year in traditional album sales. With 716,000 copies sold in its first week, it proved that even if they come with T-shirts, albums can still sell in 2019.

WHILE SWIFT started promoting Lover more than two months before its release, Post Malone announced his third album, Hollywood’s Bleeding, the week before it dropped. Despite a relative lack of marketing push, Hollywood’s Bleeding saw the biggest first-week streaming numbers of the year, beating out Ariana Grande’s Thank U, Next by more than 40 million.

In its first week, songs off Hollywood’s Bleeding accounted for nine of the top 10 spots on the RS 100 songs chart. While the rapper did offer an album bundle option on his website — hoodies, T-shirts, a blanket, and other items came with a digital copy — it was streams that did the heavy lifting in the LP’s half-million album units sold in its debut week.

Top Debuts by Sales in 2019

Top Debuts by Streams in 2019

Lover was the highest-selling album and had massive first-week sales.

Hollywood’s Bleeding beat Grande’s Thank U, Next in first-week streams.

Lover 716K

Hollywood’s Bleeding 351M Ariana Grande Thank U, Next 304M Taylor Swift Lover 216M

Tool Fear Inoculum 226K Post Malone Hollywood’s Bleeding 212K

Billie Eilish When We All Fall Asleep . . . 179M Juice WRLD Death Race for Love 170M

Billie Eilish When We All Fall Asleep . . . 184K

‘Lover,’ by the Numbers

Hollywood’s Streaming

Digital LP sales drove most of Lover’s 992,000 album units in its debut week.

Hollywood’s Bleeding shot to Number One largely thanks to audio streams.

ALBUM SALES 47%

SONG SALES 1% ALBUM SALES 82%

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991.8K AUDIO STREAMS 17%

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AUDIO STREAMS 51%

500.3K SONG SALES 2%

FROM LEFT: ANDREW H. WALKER/SHUTTERSTOCK; MATT BARON/SHUTTERSTOCK

Jonas Brothers Happiness Begins 378K

Who’s on Top? 2019’s Biggest Albums So Far We’re most of the way through the year — here are the 10 biggest LPs based on sales and on-demand audio streams

1 ONE ALBUM EVERY TWO YEARS? NEXT

2

Thank U, Next

1.8M

When We All Fall Asleep . . .

4

Taylor Swift

5

Khalid

6 7

Lover

Khalid Graduates (Again)

1.7M

1.5M

Republic

Free Spirit

1.2M

RCA

Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper

A Star Is Born

1.0M

Interscope

A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie

Hoodie SZN

SONG SALES 5%

1.7M

Republic

‘Thank U, Next’ Level Grande’s average weekly streams have increased nearly threefold since 2018.

Hollywood’s Bleeding

1.7M

ALBUM UNITS

Post Malone

3

ALBUM SALES 17% AUDIO STREAMS 78%

Republic

Billie Eilish

Eilish, who appeared on the August ROLLING STONE cover, has admitted she’s never bought a CD. So it should come as no surprise that the success of When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? has largely been driven by streams. To date, When We All Fall Asleep . . . has seen more than 1.8 billion on-demand audio streams — which account for more than three-quarters of the 1.7 million units the album has racked up.

ALBUM UNITS

Interscope

TYPICALLY, a pop star of Ariana Grande’s caliber releases an album every couple of years, stretching the life of each single as long as possible. But Grande subverted “typical” with Thank U, Next, which arrived just six months after 2018’s Sweetener. Anyone thinking Grande didn’t have any pop candy left over after Sweetener was wrong: Thank U, Next was not only a critical darling, it was also a streaming smash, with 304 million in its first week.

Even now that the dust has settled, Grande’s streams have been higher than in her pre-Thank U, Next days. In 2018, she was averaging 32.4 million weekly on-demand audio streams. So far in 2019, she’s averaged 89.8 million, a lift of 177 percent. (That’s five times the rate of growth in streams industrywide.)

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: KEVIN MAZUR/GETTY IMAGES; BROADIMAGE/SHUTTERSTOCK; PEGGY SIROTA

Ariana Grande

Billie Eilish’s Massive Debut

Khalid wrote much of his 2017 debut, American Teen, as a senior in high school, chronicling the ups and downs of a mostly normal teenager. But when he released Free Spirit this year, he was an established star, with five Grammy nominations and a host of hits under his belt. The difference shows: Free Spirit moved 187,000 units in its first week, more than six times what American Teen saw in its first week.

‘Shallow’ Steals the Show With every iteration of A Star Is Born, one song seems to stand out, like Judy Garland’s “The Man That Got Away” in the 1954 version. For the 2018 film, starring Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper, it was the Oscar-winning track “Shallow.”

Here are the top five songs from the soundtrack, by total streams. How big was “Shallow”? Big enough to count for one-third of the album’s total streams.

1.0M Shallow 318M

Atlantic

400M

Always Remember Us This Way 120M 2/8/19

Thank U, Next album released 364M

8

Lil Nas X

9

Jonas Brothers

7 EP

923K

Columbia

Maybe It’s Time 41M Look What I Found 40M

300M

Is That Alright? 35M

Happiness Begins

921K

Republic

200M

The JoBros Get Back Various Artists

11/3/18

10

“Thank U, Next” single released 81M

907K

Republic

100M

0 6/17

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

9/19

ALBUM UNITS is a metric combining album sales, song sales, and audio streams, using a custom weighting system.

This list reflects data from December 28th, 2018, to September 23rd, 2019, as recorded by Alpha Data.

Check out the full Rolling Stone Charts at RollingStone.com/Charts

Boy-band comebacks can be hard to pull off. But when the Jonas Brothers released Happiness Begins, their first studio album in 10 years, it was like they’d never left.

The LP moved 421,500 units in its first week, including 378,000 album sales.

Lead single “Sucker,” meanwhile, is the trio’s most-streamed single since Alpha Data started tracking streams, with 305 million since its March 1st release.

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K

ESHA’S FOLLOW-UP to 2017’s emotionally weighty, rock-leaning Rainbow started off as what she describes as a “psychedelic country record.” But a phone call from her brother sent her in another direction.

“He was like, ‘Why don’t you write some pop songs?’ ” she says. “ ‘You’re good at it, you like it.’ ” She ended up writing 54 songs for the album, which is due in December — and some tracks feature a return to her original style, complete with rapping à la “Tik Tok” (the 2009 Kesha hit, to be clear, not the app).

“What you call rapping,” she says, “I call talking shit.”

What was your response to that conversation with your brother?

I kind of felt like I didn’t have the right to be happy and write happy songs, and then “My Own Dance” was the first pop song I wrote. I was like, “Fine. I’ll go write a fucking pop song.” And then I was like, “Wait, this is superfun. Why am I keeping myself from the greatest pleasure of my life?” And I have to say, that song, and that conversation with my brother, put me on the path of finding probably the most severe happiness I’ve ever had my entire life.

How, exactly?

Well, I’ve been through things that were not all pleasant, and we all know about them. I felt a little guilty about making dance-y songs, fun songs, and songs about going out and getting drunk with my friends. And then I realized I don’t have to live under a dark cloud forever.

No one’s telling me to be happy. I earned my happiness, and it’s OK to be happy.

And hopefully that’s inspiring to people. I’m a survivor of shit, but it doesn’t mean I have to be defined by what I’ve been through for the rest of my life.

What did it feel like to rap again in the studio?

I felt like it was not the right time to do that on Rainbow — I had a lot of really serious things to address on that record, and in my mind, part of the joy I didn’t deserve

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Kesha The pop star on returning to her original style and embracing happiness in the process

By BRIAN HIATT anymore was wrapped up in what you call rapping. I’ve never felt comfortable when people call me a rapper. It makes me laugh. But part of regaining my happiness was starting to talk a little shit. I’d work with people and they’d be like, “There she is. There’s that bitch.” I realized it was making me so happy, and then it’s hopefully going to make other people happy.

There’s also at least one really introspective ballad on the album, too, right?

November 2019

The song “Father Daughter” was just me contemplating what life would be like if I’d had a father. So there’s wacky shit and moments that are super-introspective. Yeah, I feel like we’re finally at a place in music where you don’t just have to be one thing. Like, you can be all the things. You can be everything. You can be the infinite amount of things that people are.

How did Big Freedia end up on the first single, “Raising Hell”?

Well, Big Freedia came on the Kesha cruise, and that’s where we met. I’d never been on a cruise before, and I was a little terrified, because I just watched the Fyre Fest documentary. And the first night, Big Freedia played, and I was like, “Oh, this is going to be the best four days of my life.”

And it was so much fucking fun. We got matching tattoos on our hands, and I got to know all her dancers. She pulled me up onstage. I have a fucked-up knee from when

I tore my ACL, and she was like, “Sit on the dick!” And I was like, “I can’t sit on the dick. Only my right knee’s working.” And then by the end of it, we were both like, “We have to collaborate.

This is too good.” And then we wrote “Raising Hell,” and I was like, “OK, if this is going to maybe be the first single, I really want Freedia on it.”

Earlier this year, you leaked the song “Rich, White, Straight Men,” probably the wildest-sounding thing you’ve ever recorded.

Where did that come from?

I mean, have you heard about the world lately?

[Laughs] My ideas are summed up in that song, which sounds like a carnival on a bad acid trip, which is kind of what the world is right now. Which is why I feel like people need some pure-pleasure, pop, fuck-off, fun, happy music — so here I am to deliver.

Your own lawsuit preceded the #MeToo movement.

So what do you make of it?

Obviously I’m heartbroken that any kind of sexual abuse happens to any human being in the world. It shouldn’t have to be something that is a movement, and that makes me really sad. But I commend any person who has stood up and told their truth, because it’s really difficult.

What have you been listening to lately?

Right now, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young’s Déjà Vu is on my record player. I love Lizzo and I love Billie Eilish — I’m obsessed with Lizzo. And this morning I was listening to the [Ric Ocasek-produced] second Suicide record. Ric Ocasek had a huge influence on me accepting that pop music is fucking cool.

It feels like there’s less pressure on you this time.

The vibe is so different.

It’s so nice to feel so happy, when that felt inconceivable a couple of years ago. To be laying in the front yard, tanning my titties, talking to you, not crying — and I’m so excited about doing fun music. . . . But every time, though, I feel the pressure, just for my fans. I want them to love it!

ASHLEY OSBORN

The Mix

PANCHO AND NANCY Nancy Pelosi visited Austin to attend the Texas Tribune Festival. The speaker of the House interrupted her talk when she spotted Willie Nelson in the audience. “When we listen to Willie Nelson, we’re not Democrats or Republicans,” Pelosi said. “We’re all Americans.” Fans had been apprehensive when Nelson canceled some tour dates due to health reasons. But he returned to the stage for the 34th annual Farm Aid festival.

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RIHANNA’S

SAVAGE SUCCESS Rihanna and Cardi B hung out at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center, where the R&B superstar hosted her Savage x Fenty show, part of New York Fashion Week.

The event featured appearances by DJ Khaled, Migos, and Halsey — and a raucous dance performance by RiRi. Beyond her fashion line, the singer is also getting ready to release a 500page “visual autobiography” called Rihanna.

In September, Cardi won an auction for the “Ultra Luxury Supreme” edition, which includes a one-ton stone pedestal. The winning bid: $111,000.

MAGGIE MAKES IT Just three years after she graduated from NYU, Maggie Rogers played two sold-out shows at Radio City Music Hall. “It’s the realm of dreams you don’t say out loud,” she said.

ALWAYS

FAMOUS Joni Mitchell made a rare public appearance at the premiere of writer-director Cameron Crowe’s musical adaptation of his movie Almost Famous, which opened in San Diego in September. “She owned the room,” Crowe said.

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Random Notes

Mick and Bruce’s Big Adventure

A$AP ROCKS AGAIN A$AP Rocky was in Milan for Fashion Week, where he hung out with Dani Miller of the glam-rock band Surfbort. The Harlem rapper is currently hard at work on his next album, reportedly titled All Smiles.

Mick Jagger and Bruce Springsteen were both in Italy for a little time off.

Springsteen hung with Steven Spielberg in Portofino (left). Jagger joined actor Elizabeth Debicki (above) at the Venice Film Festival to screen his new movie, Burnt Orange Heresy. Jagger used the event to discuss the climate crisis: “The U.S. should be the leader . . . now it has decided to go the other way.”

GLOBAL RHAPSODY Queen guitarist Brian May blew away the crowd at the eighth Global Citizen Festival in New York’s Central Park.

Queen just finished the North American leg of their ongoing Rhapsody Tour.

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“He is the ranting madman in Dunkin’ Donuts that causes all the customers to make a go-plan with each other using only their eyes.”

—Sarah Silverman on Donald Trump

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RANDOM QUOTE

CAN’T KNOCK THE HUSTLE Jennifer Lopez celebrated the release of Hustlers with a lavish party in Miami. JLo is also getting ready to co-headline next year’s Super Bowl with Shakira. “[I’m] happy to be a part of this new movement of inclusivity,” she said.

SOM E G I F T S A RE M E A N T TO B E S H A RE D

GR E Y G O O S E . C O M SIP RESPONSIBLY. ©2019 GREY GOOSE, ITS TRADE DRESS, THE GEESE DEVICE AND LIVE VICTORIOUSLY ARE TRADEMARKS. IMPORTED BY GREY GOOSE IMPORTING COMPANY, CORAL GABLES, FL. VODKA – 40% ALC. BY VOL. DISTILLED FROM FRENCH WHEAT.

The Case For Impeachment The president’s abuse of power has surpassed any we’ve seen in our history — and Congress must act

By SEAN WILENTZ

ILLUSTRATION BY Victor Juhasz

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W

ITH A SINGLE TELEphone call, Donald Trump betrayed the presidency in ways almost unimaginable until that moment.

During the call, he attempted to pressure a foreign leader to help him smear and destroy both a chief political opponent and that opponent’s political party to benefit himself in a presidential election. This offense differs from all his other transgressions, venal corruptions, and daily degradations of the office. It is an attack on the foundations of our republic, turning diplomacy into a weapon of personal and partisan political power. The nation’s founders understood, having fought a revolution against monarchy, that no government of the people was invulnerable to such egregious abuses of power.

They were particularly concerned, as Alexander Hamilton wrote in the Federalist Papers, that a president, through “cabal, intrigue, and corruption,” might help “foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils.” In their wisdom, they created a mechanism to halt this disloyal corruption in its tracks: impeachment.

Impeachment is a severe measure of last resort, which ought to be used only in the most extreme cases. In the United States, the voters are supposed to decide who governs. That’s what the Framers of the Constitution had in mind when they formed a new government in which, at every level, ultimate sovereignty lay in “We, the People.” Elections legitimately won cannot be illegitimately undone at the whim of a faction or party. They should only be undone by throwing the bum out at the next election.

What happens, though, if a president uses the powers of office to disrupt the next election? What if that president does so by brazenly enlisting the aid of a hostile foreign power? Or if he does so by trying in secret to extort cooperation from a foreign ally threatened by that same hostile power? What if the president has denied the existence of an ongoing systematic cyberattack from the hostile power, which every U.S. intelligence service calls a clear and present threat to our democracy? What if the actions of that president raise urgent questions about the legitimacy of the next election and cast a darker cloud over how he gained the office in the first place?

There have been earlier impeachments and interferences with democratic institutions in our history, but nothing like this one. In this, as he likes to say, Trump truly stands alone. He has assaulted American democracy, claimed he has the authority to do so, and dared anybody to do anything about it, dismissing with contempt Congress’ clear constitutional authority to oversee and check the executive branch.

He thinks he can use the office of the presidency as a personal instrument, along with private emissaries, to desecrate the rule of law and then protect himself from the consequences. He even declares in public that he is the law, claiming that, according to Article II of the Constitution, “I have the right to do whatever I want as president.” Not even the most corrupt

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and criminal of our previous presidents has tried to pervert our most sacred institutions as openly as Trump has.

At the dawn of the republic, during the troubled 1790s, the incumbent administration of President John Adams took extraordinary actions against a mounting opposition led by Vice President Thomas Jefferson, arguably interfering with national politics more directly than Trump. By signing the repressive Alien and Sedition Acts in 1798, Adams outlawed public criticism of himself or any member of Congress.

More than 20 Republican newspaper editors went to jail, as did a Vermont congressman. Yet as Congress had initiated the new laws, there was never a question of impeaching Adams.

What Jefferson called “the reign of witches” would end only when Adams very narrowly lost re-election to the Virginian in 1800.

Seventy years later, after the Civil War, President Andrew Johnson systematically undermined congressional policy on Reconstruction. Impeached by the House, the vituperative, self-dramatizing racist Johnson escaped removal by a single vote in the Senate, and was not renominated. (Seven years later, after violence by the Ku Klux Klan helped to overthrow Reconstruction in his home state of Tennessee, Johnson was elected to the Senate and claimed vindication, but months later, felled by a pair of strokes, he died, a hero to ex-Confederates.)

Through the succeeding turbulent century, every president faced accusations of misconduct, including, in some cases, overstepping the constitutional limits of the office. None, however, abused their powers for political ends in ways that seriously raised the possibility of impeachment. That would have to await the presidency of Richard M. Nixon.

In 1972, Nixon and his aides committed the acts that led to his eventual resignation from office — including acts that resemble what Trump is accused of. We remember Watergate mainly for the break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters. Yet it quickly came to light that it was only one incident in a massive operation of political spying and sabotage carried on by Nixon’s re-election campaign. A high point of that operation was a phony letter written by Nixon functionaries claiming that the leading candidate for the Democratic nomination, Sen. Edmund Muskie, had condoned the use of an ethnic slur against French Canadians. Nixon feared Muskie above all the other Democrats — much as Trump is said to fear Joe Biden. The forged accusation circulated by Nixon’s self-styled “ratfuckers” set off a chain of events that led to Muskie’s withdrawal and the eventual nomination of George McGovern, whom Nixon then duly trounced in November.

In the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan defied the Constitution in the so-called Iran-Contra affair, violating a congressional ban on aid to the Contra rebels in Nicaragua while funding the operation by diverting funds from clandestine sales of arms to Iran. Reagan, who testified that he did not recall approving any of it, survived intense congressional inquiry. But the effects of the scandal lingered. In 1992, a spe-

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cial-counsel investigation was closing in on implicating President George H.W. Bush, who had been Reagan’s vice president, in the Iran-Contra disaster. Bush’s attorney general helped figure out how to upend the investigation — which at the very least would have forever stained Bush’s reputation and helped ensure the conviction of several indicted Bush associates — by issuing some timely pardons. That attorney general was named William Barr — the same William Barr now serving Trump.

The Clinton impeachment bears the least resemblance to the Trump crisis. After investigating Clinton for five years and coming up with nothing, Republicans got wind of an extramarital liaison with an intern, Monica Lewinsky, and alerted independent counsel Ken Starr. Starr’s office lured Clinton into a perjury trap — the sort of dissembling about sex that few district attorneys would then have bothered to pursue as a crime. The case for impeachment was so flimsy that, even in a polarized Congress, more Republicans defected than Democrats. Unlike in the Johnson impeachment, Clinton came nowhere close to conviction.

Now consider Trump’s current crisis. Leave aside most of what his critics have been railing about since the 2016 election, every offense from the Stormy Daniels hush-money payoffs to Trump using the presidency to profit financially in violation of the Constitution’s emoluments clause. Focus simply on the Ukraine transcript and the whistle-blower complaint that helped bring the transcript to light. Trump and his defenders have attacked the whistle-blower, a national security professional, as a partisan hack who didn’t even listen to the phone call in question. Yet according to the transcript — which the White House itself released — the conversation between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reads exactly as the whistleblower described it, a naked attempt to pressure Ukraine into assisting in sliming Joe Biden.

Trump’s most ardent defenders, led by Sen. Lindsey Graham, called the transcript a “nothing (non-quid pro quo) burger” because it did not show Trump laying out an explicit deal: You investigate the DNC hacking conspiracy theory and the Bidens, and you’ll get the $391 million in military aid. But it was crystal clear: The Ukrainian president is deeply dependent on the U.S. for military support against Russia. Trump pointedly notes that the U.S. has indeed been good to the Ukrainians, even if the largesse was not reciprocated. Cutting short the Ukrainian president’s flattery, Trump asks for a “favor” to investigate allegations that might dig up dirt on his opponent. If Zelensky expected the U.S. to remain supportive, it was obvious that he’d better do Trump’s political bidding.

Moreover, as of this writing, a second whistleblower has come forward confirming the first’s complaint, and text messages between U.S. diplomats have come to light that only reinforce the case: Trump was using the levers of diplomatic power abroad to harm his political opponents at home.

Even if there weren’t the issue of military aid, Trump’s request would be a severe abuse

EVAN VUCCI/AP IMAGES/SHUTTERSTOCK

of presidential power. Never before in our history has a president been known to approach a foreign leader in this way, asking for specific action against domestic political adversaries.

The transcript reads like an organized-crime shakedown. A man comes to the all-powerful crime boss full of praise for the boss’s greatness and for all he has done. The boss replies, Well, yes, I’ve been very good to you. Perhaps it’s not been reciprocated. So I’m going to ask you to do me a favor — come to think of it, two favors. Don Corleone couldn’t have said it any better. In real life, though, this isn’t a case of a crime boss extorting some individual or corporation; it is an American president turning the nation’s foreign policy toward his personal political gain. It is exactly the sort of thing Hamilton had in mind when he wrote in the Federalist Papers about impeachment being used to punish “the abuse or violation of some public trust.”

It is also against our national interest: Ukraine is battling Russian forces that occupy about one-third of its territory. Trump has publicly stated his indifference to the brutal Russian invasion; the whistle-blower’s complaint remarked on how Trump has told reporters that Zelensky “is going to make a deal with President Putin, and he will be invited to the White House.” Trump repeated himself while meeting with Zelensky at the United Nations after the whistle-blower crisis began, stating that he hoped the Ukrainian president would “get together” with Putin to “solve your problem” — another unsubtle bit of pressure. Trump is leaning on a beleaguered purported foreign ally to surrender to a powerful purported foe — a relentless foe that has attacked and is still attacking our democracy.

One of the most severe charges in the whistleblower complaint, to which the White House has actually confessed, is that administration officials, recognizing the political sensitivity of Trump’s attempt to extort Ukraine, had the transcript placed on a highly classified server not open to the usual top-level officials. The complaint also notes that this was not the first time such a transcript was put into “lock down.”

Other suspicious calls, with Putin as well as Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, reportedly were also unusually restricted. So was a call with Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, during which Trump tried to get Morrison to help discredit the origins of the Mueller investigation. A common remark during the Watergate scandal was that the coverup was worse than the crime. That doesn’t seem to hold in Trump’s case, given the seriousness of the crime, but the cover-up on its own would be grounds for impeachment.

The whistle-blower’s complaint as well as the transcript are also clear about the possible complicity and culpability of Rudy Giuliani and William Barr in Trump’s corruption. In his conversation with Zelensky, Trump repeatedly referred to Giuliani and Barr as his representatives, in effect his consiglieres, with whom he would like the Ukrainians to work. Having a private citizen such as Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, act as a formal diplomatic go-

between with a foreign power in order to advance Trump’s political interests is an outrageous violation of the public trust. Worse, perhaps, it seems clear that Barr has acted not as an attorney general sworn to uphold the Constitution but, in effect, as another private Trump attorney, spending his time and the taxpayers’ money to assist Trump’s re-election effort.

Subsequent revelations that Barr has traveled abroad to pressure foreign governments into cooperating with a probe alleging that the CIA and FBI conspired to gin up the Mueller investigation affirm that impression. Nixon had his henchmen, bagmen, and go-betweens, many of whom wound up in prison; Giuliani and Barr have acted even more brazenly as Trump’s col-

THE MADNESS OF KING TRUMP “I have the right to do whatever I want as president,” Trump has claimed.

The Ukraine scandal represents exactly the type of abuse of power that impeachment was intended to remedy.

laborators, in what has the earmarks of a continuing criminal conspiracy.

In all, the unfolding Ukraine scandal provides compelling evidence that Trump committed crimes against the Constitution that dwarf Nixon’s offenses. In response, Trump and his defenders have resorted to the Nixon playbook of evasion, stonewalling, and distraction, although with a belligerence that would have surprised and impressed even Nixon and his most die-hard co-conspirators. In an extraordinary letter to Congress, Trump’s White House counsel made clear the administration had no intention of cooperating with what it considered a “partisan and unconstitutional inquiry.”

Any impeachment, of course, is by definition a traumatic event, undertaking the gravest of political actions against a public figure who still has his share of ardent supporters. Given the polarization of our politics today, and the furious attachment of Trump’s base to the man, the divisiveness is bound to be wrenching. Yet Trump’s response in the face of those realities has been to excite the divisions to a fever pitch, tweeting about Congress’ lawful investigation as a “coup,” and endorsing claims that a vote to remove him from office would bring violence. At the very least, Trump has been verging on inciting civil unrest against the government, another brazen attack on the Constitution. He can’t help dealing with an impeachment inquiry ex-

cept by committing further impeachable offenses. The cost of allowing such a person to remain in office is far greater than the bitterness his removal is bound to cause.

Here is another of the central dangers of permitting Trump to stay in office. He has shown he will stop at nothing to taint the 2020 election. And more profoundly, he is trying to subvert the American government. Trump and his supporters like to rail against what they call the “deep state” as an un-American force. But that “deep state” is in fact nothing more than the government of the United States of America, which he and his supporters hold in open contempt and which the Trump White House has done its utmost to decimate, replacing responsible officials with flunkies.

Although Nancy Pelosi had long suspected Trump of grave wrongdoing, it took the Ukraine scandal to persuade her to commence an impeachment inquiry. Along with others skeptical of impeachment, she could see clearly how this affair signaled that Trump’s tenure in office was an emergency that needed full investigation. Predictably, Republicans stood by Trump, in part out of fear of his wrath and even more because they see in him, despite all his vulgarity, a champion of their principles, including a reflexive hostility to government.

It would require at least 20 Republican senators to desert Trump in order to remove him from office.

Many observers consider that highly unlikely, to say the least, but the clarity of the evidence mounting against the president — and his contempt for Congress’ power — may make the outcome in the Senate far from a foregone conclusion. Trump’s Republican loyalists are not doing themselves or their party any favors, let alone the nation. They seem oblivious to the glaring fact of Trump’s career: That, perhaps outside of his own family, there is no associate he is not willing to destroy once he decides that his finances, his power, or simply his fragile ego demand it.

At one level, Trump’s hostile takeover of the Republican Party will not end until he has devoured everyone inside it who is not a slavish extension of his own will to power. At another, Trump’s war against the U.S. government, his rage to turn every federal institution into an instrument of his own self-aggrandizement, aims to void government of any other purpose. This is precisely what the Ukraine scandal reveals.

And it leaves Congress with no alternative but to impeach and remove him.

Trump’s offenses represent the greatest threat to American democracy since the Confederate secession in 1860-61. The time is fast approaching for all Americans to decide which side they are on: the United States of America or Donald J. Trump.

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ELECTION 2020

The Biden Paradox He’s under attack and slipping in the polls.

Should Democrats be all in on the former vice president, or all out?

O

N A BLISTERING AFTERNOON in the courtyard of the East Las Vegas Community Center, former Vice President Joe Biden steps to the lectern. With white hair and aviator glasses, he looks like he wandered off the set of an Invisible Man remake.

“How’s he going to hold up in this heat?” whispers a middle-aged white woman in the crowd to her husband. The latter keeps eyes forward under a golf visor, as if attention might keep the 76-year-old Biden upright.

If Donald Trump is expanding with age, Baron Harkonnen-style, like a giant zit, Biden seems to be shrinking. Always a verbal loose cannon, he goes blank now with regularity, lacing every minute of every appearance with the threat of media calamity.

Biden and Trump appear destined to be linked, by age, social media heat (#BidenGaffe will rival #CatsofTwitter if Biden wins the nomination), and now, the exploding Ukraine scandal. Las Vegas is the former vice president’s first event since Democrats announced plans to push impeachment proceedings against Trump, who is accused of pressuring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate Biden and his son.

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All year, Trump has displayed an almost gastrointestinal eagerness to face Biden in the general election. He alerts to Biden’s name like a spider to an earwig, pounding the theme that the ex-senator is too old and too punch-drunk to hold up in the internet blood dojo that is modern presidential politics. “I like running against people that are weak mentally,” Trump said of Biden in June.

Since Ukrainegate broke, a furious Trump has stepped up such attacks on “our not very bright vice president” and “Sleepy Joe.” Will this abuse help or hurt the Biden campaign?

How will the candidate respond? In Vegas, a large press contingent waits for a sign.

“Look,” begins Biden in a quiet voice, “in the weeks and the months to come, it’s the Congress’ job to pursue the facts, and, uh, to hold Donald Trump accountable.”

Cheers. The “I Will Kick Trump in His Tiny Balls” preamble is a mandatory element in 2020 Democrat stumpery.

Biden goes on, seeming on the verge of settling into rhythm, when a heavyset man with a blond Prince Valiant haircut jumps up.

“Joe Biden is a predator!” he screams, dropping into a weird power pose while flashing a #MeToo sign. “The media is covering it up!”

WORKINGMAN’S JOE On the campaign trail in Las Vegas, former Vice President Biden vowed “to hold Donald Trump accountable.”

The sign might reference Nevada’s former candidate for lieutenant governor, Lucy Flores, who last spring described being creeped out (“What in the actual fuck?” she wrote) by Biden kissing her head and sniffing her hair before a speech in 2014. It’s one of many tales that have bounced off Biden. If enough people think you’re the best hope to beat Donald Trump, it turns out, a lot of warts disappear.

“Let him go!” Biden pleads.

The heckler is ushered toward the door, to chants of Bi-den! Bi-den!

“That’s how far we’ve fallen!” snaps Biden.

People keep telling Biden he should just go away, but he takes the abuse and keeps soldiering on, like a stray dog following a hiking party.

It’s working, or it was, anyway, until he recently began sinking in the polls.

Biden is a man from another time, marooned in a public sphere that has passed him by. His speeches about tax credits, “investing in ourselves,” and building “cutting-edge infrastructure” feel like echoes of “pro-growth” Democrat speeches from the Nineties, just returned to Earth after a journey around the sun. Along with a history of questionable ties to campaign donors, he’s also an old white man with a history of wandering hands and problematic ut-

SEAN RAYFORD/GETTY IMAGES

By MATT TAIBBI

terances, which would seem to disqualify him these days for a post as an adjunct lit professor, let alone the liberal party’s nominee.

Everything seems like it should be against Joe Biden: #MeToo, age, a radicalizing Democratic base, calculated attacks from a huge field of primary opponents, an iffy past on racial issues, a Google-searchable mother lode of verbal boners, and a dozen other things.

But no one who is familiar with Biden’s past would ever write him off. He lost his grown son Beau to brain cancer in 2015, and his first wife, Neilia, and daughter Naomi were killed in a car accident in 1972. Unspeakable loss has become intertwined with his political persona, so much so that current Delaware Sen. Chris Coons once called grief Biden’s “superpower,” in the sense that it aids his ability to connect with voters.

Bill Clinton said he felt your pain — with Biden it’s the opposite, voters feel his.

As great as Biden’s personal tragedies may be, though, he’s also suffered significant political losses, and here we come to the first quirk of Biden’s bizarre career: He has a rare ability to convert disaster into opportunity.

The Ukraine story might sink his campaign, but it also may help. Trump occupying the other side of an all-consuming media apocalypse may garner sympathy, while solidifying the impression that Biden carries the flag for Democrats. Could a scandal propel Biden upward? It wouldn’t be the first time.

T

HE BIDEN PARADOX: One could make an argument he’s building a legacy as the most comically maladroit national political contender in American history. At times, Biden 2020 has been more like an MTV blooper show than a presidential campaign. Here’s a rundown of what should have been a sleepy August campaign: August 1st: “Poor kids are just as bright and talented as white kids.” August 4th: Expresses sorrow over “tragic events in Houston today and also in Michigan,” i.e., mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio. August 8th: “We choose truth over facts!” August 16th: Confuses Burlington, Vermont, and Burlington, Iowa.

August 21st: “Bobby Kennedy and Dr. King had been assassinated in the Seventies.” August 24th: In Keene, New Hampshire — “I love this place. Look, what’s not to like about Vermont?”

August 26th: Forgets which Dartmouth College building he just visited, telling the crowd, “I’m not going nuts.”

From there, Biden drove into telephone pole after telephone pole. He told a story about braving “Godforsaken” country in Afghanistan to pin a medal on a soldier’s chest that turned out to be an amalgam of multiple tales.

He called Bernie Sanders the president (he’d already called Cory Booker the president). Then, in front of 14 million TV viewers for the third Democratic Party debate, he turned a question about the legacy of slavery into a rambling diatribe about how inner-city parents should leave a “record player” on at night, a line that was somehow both parody of right-wing paternalism and outdated by about 30 years.

BIDEN’S HIGHS AND LOWS In 1990, he sponsored the Violence Against Women Act; it passed in 1994.

“My proudest legislative achievement,” Biden has said.

On gun control, he helped push through the Brady Bill and the assaultweapons ban.

A toughon-crime Democrat, Biden helped write a 1994 crime bill that led to mass incarceration. “[It] worked in some areas.

But it failed in others,” he said. “The violent-crime rate was cut in half.”

Biden voted for the Iraq War in 2002.

“I do not believe this is a rush to war,” he said at the time. He has since admitted his error.

Yet Biden still could win the Democratic nomination. One can almost hear party figures trying to work out the riddle: Should there be an urgent examination of this candidate’s flaws before it’s too late? Or should they circle wagons early, and start trying to force attention on Biden’s bright side heading into next year?

Biden has strengths. While he endures near-constant ridicule for tortured verbiage and inappropriate statements, he rarely gets credit for his tenacity. No matter what else this older, perhaps diminished version of Biden might forget onstage, he always stays on script.

Along with his ability to connect emotionally with audiences, it’s his greatest asset.

In Vegas, he continues his campaign-long habit of avoiding mention of “impeachment,” a word that has helped fuel rival Elizabeth Warren’s rise up the Democratic primary polls (Warren was the first Democrat to unequivocally endorse impeaching Trump), but efforts to oust the president have a less certain prognosis for the general election. Biden clings, instead, to phrases like “holding Trump accountable.” This restraint takes discipline, given that impeachment is on the entire world’s lips.

He reminds the crowd that his “job” is not fighting the impeachment battle, but remaining electable against Trump, whom he claims to have bested in 70 head-to-head polls. “My job, our job,” he says, “is to make sure above all else . . . we . . . beat . . . Donald . . . Trump!”

There’s a workmanlike, industrial quality to the way Biden doles out salvos, like a man unloading boxes of frozen fish. He’s unafraid of redundancy and reaches with awe-inspiring frequency for certain words. He says America 30 or 40 times per appearance — literally — getting there with heavy use of related constructions like the United States of America, the American people, and the story of America.

The perfect Biden rhetorical devices are metronome tautologies like those used in Vegas: “This election is about the American people, here in Nevada and throughout the United States of America. . . . The American people, and this is not hyperbole, have never, ever, ever let the American people down. . . . This is the United States of America!”

Biden moves through the first part of his Vegas speech in low tones, at times turning sideways and whispering, like he saw someone over a wall in the distance. Then he hits an applause line (“You know what Donald Trump has done. I’m here to tell you what I will do!”) and begins speaking in Loud Voice. The ex-veep’s emotional attitude in this campaign can switch from distant to troubled to lucid and defiant and back again, in the space of minutes.

Still, when he rolls, Biden’s voice crackles with energy, and with his blue shirtsleeves and swept hair, he looks like Politician Clip Art. His tepid unoriginality on the policy front is in this sense a positive. In the Trump era, many voters have had enough kink — they’re looking for the absence of something — and few politicians can say nothing quite like Joe Biden. Listening to one of his speeches all the way through is like being beaten with a cliché hammer:

“I was proud to serve as Barack Obama’s vice president. . . . We have to make health care a right, not a privilege. . . . You can sign up for a public option. . . . Increasing subsidies for the middle class . . . Their debt will be forgiven. . . . Ladies and gentlemen, Donald Trump inherited a strong economy from us, just like he inherited everything in his life!”

While Biden talks constantly about Trump, he does so in a way different from Hillary Clinton, who spent a whopping 90 percent of her advertising attacking Trump as an individual. Biden has tweaked that message, ironically using Trumpian themes to sell an anti-Trump message. Biden, like Trump, relies on American exceptionalism but in a different construct.

Trump argued America had lost its exceptional status and he, Trump, would single-handedly fix it. Biden argues America was always exceptional, but lost its status because of Trump. He volunteers as the experienced old alley fighter willing to go down into the labyrinth to slay the Orange Minotaur.

The logic of the Biden campaign, at least up until the Ukraine story broke, had been avoiding hot takes, focusing on this elemental tale tailored for the general-election message. This “above the fray” approach was described by The Washington Post as trying “to avoid the political spasm in which he is now the central figure.”

For a long time, it worked. After Biden announced his candidacy in April, he surged to a huge poll lead and joined Sanders as one of two Democrats to consistently poll well in head-tohead surveys against Trump. Commentators said he offered voters “normalcy” and scored particularly well with the blue version of the Silent Majority, the “Hidden Democratic Party” of less-progressive, older voters. When California Sen. Kamala Harris assailed him for his past support of school busing in the first debate, she temporarily became a “top tier” candidate while Biden dipped, prompting predictions that he would slide among voters seeking a “fresh” face.

But Harris cratered soon after and Biden rebounded, seeming to validate his “above the fray” strategy. He took working-class voters from Sanders and retained enough support from major donors to stall the momentum toward Warren. The problem is, Ukraine makes staying out of the “spasm” impossible. When the news broke that a CIA whistle-blower launched a complaint about President Trump’s apparent request that Ukraine investigate Biden and his son Hunter’s ties to Ukrainian gas giant Burisma, Joe had no choice but to respond.

His initial strategy, after Trump released the rough transcript of his call to Zelensky, was to go full-on Liam Neeson and pitch Ukrainegate as a home invasion requiring urgent vengeance. He said Trump “abused his power to come after my family,” describing the implication that he or his son had done anything wrong as a “malicious conspiracy theory that has been debunked by every independent outlet that has looked at it.”

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TIMELINE

in late 2015. (The Biden campaign did not comment on the record about this story.)

Part of the problem is that this is not the first time Hunter Biden has been caught in a compromising position. In 2008, reports surfaced that Hunter had been retained as a consultant by the credit-card company MBNA while his father was on his way to voting for the infamous bankruptcy bill, which made it harder for debtors to declare bankruptcy.

The Obama campaign insisted “[Hunter’s] work had absolutely nothing to do with the bankruptcy bill,” but it sure didn’t look good.

It likewise looked horrible when Hunter got a seat on the board of another major employer of Delawareans, Amtrak, with Sen. Tom Carper offering what feels like a sarcastic anti-recommendation of Joe’s son, saying he was qualified because “Hunter Biden has spent a lot of time on Amtrak trains.”

This is in addition to Joe Biden in 1996 having sold his Delaware house to an MBNA executive for $1.2 million — six times what he paid for it — in what The New York Times described as a word-of-mouth transaction.

Even if there was nothing shady in any of this, Democrats have to ask themselves if they want to return to parsing the not-wrongness of a nominee’s head-scratching financial relationships. The Biden family’s history of confusing entanglements would represent a déjà vu return to the 2016 campaign, which saw a Democratic candidate having to spend nearly two years explaining why it was OK to make $225,000 per speech to Goldman Sachs executives. Why revive the soft-corruption argument?

The Ukraine story by its very nature will — and possibly should, depending on your view of Hunter’s Burisma job — dog Biden for as long as his campaign continues. The increased scrutiny and Trump’s direct assault on his family have forced Biden into a more combative mode on the trail. In one 24-hour span, he attacked the New York Times coverage of his campaign as “journalistic malpractice” while endorsing im-

HISTORY MAKING In 1991, Biden chaired the confirmation hearing for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. He has been criticized for how he handled Anita Hill’s sexualharassment allegations against Thomas. “She just did not get treated fair across the board,” Biden said. “The system did not work.”

As senator, Biden voted for the Defense of Marriage Act, but later as vice president, he publicly pushed Obama to back gay marriage.

peachment, saying Trump was “shooting holes in the Constitution.”

Impeachment does commit Democrats to a strident defense of Biden and his son, even if, or perhaps especially if, there’s a real problem that needs regular PR response. There are already reports that major party donors are “weighing” whether to set up a Super PAC to “independently” defend Biden.

These include Julianna Smoot, who led Obama’s campaign finance team, Democratic consultant Mark Riddle, and others. The Washington Post reported the group is concerned a pro-Biden PAC may trigger attacks from primary rivals Warren and Sanders that he is “being bankrolled by wealthy interests.” This comes as word leaked out that Biden has cut back on digital ads after posting just $15.2 million in money raised in the third quarter of the 2020 race, a dramatic fall from his second-quarter number of $22 million. He is far behind both Warren ($24.6 million) and Sanders ($25.3 million), so a sudden surge in PAC money would be a potential campaign saver.

In other words, the fact that Biden has political vulnerability on Ukraine may end up pushing more institutional support his way. Again, this wouldn’t be the first time a Biden political weakness became an asset.

T

HE NOTION THAT the former vice president is the perfect person to take on schoolyard-bully Donald Trump is not entirely unsupported by the evidence, even if the evidence comes from Joe Biden.

Biden’s autobiographical works, Promises to Keep and Promise Me, Dad, tell the story of a man who overcame stuff. The Pennsylvania and Delaware native reports he was nicknamed “Dash” in high school, not because he was fast (although he is quick to remind readers, “I was fast”) but because of a stutter. “I talked like Morse code,” he recalled. “You gu-gu-gu-guguys sh-sh-sh-sh-shut up!”

FROM LEFT: REAL JOBS NC, INC.; UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD; MARC LEVY/AP IMAGES/ SHUTTERSTOCK; IBAGLI/CREATIVE COMMONS CC0 1.0; RENA SCHILD/SHUTTERSTOCK

But Hunter Biden’s acceptance of a $50,000-per-month position with Burisma while Daddy was a sitting vice president with a foreign-policy brief is not conspiracy theory, but fact. It’s an automatically gruesome look.

The Ukrainians were almost certainly looking to create the “perception that [Burisma] was backed by powerful Americans,” as The New York Times put it. This is before we get to the question of whether or not Hunter actually did anything to earn the money (unclear) or whether Joe Biden knew about the arrangement (father and son have told different stories).

The standard media take on Hunter’s noshow Burisma job has been “Sure, it looks completely like shit, but is it illegal?” (“Of course there’s an appearance problem,” a “former adviser” told The Washington Post, before adding quickly that there is no evidence of “wrongdoing.”) Regarding Biden’s awareness or lack thereof of Hunter’s job, the standard line has been “no evidence of criminal wrongdoing,” the word “criminal” being operative.

There are other angles on the Ukraine story that seem destined to remain problematic, like Biden’s visit to Ukraine as vice president in December 2015. Uncle Joe delivered a Kneel Before Zod dictum to then-President Petro Poroshenko, declaring he would hold up a billion-dollar aid package if the country’s general prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, was not fired immediately. “I’m leaving in six hours,” he later recounted saying. “If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money.”

This incident would look Trump-level terrible if it were to come out that Shokin was investigating his son’s company. The Biden campaign, and most American news agencies, have insisted such investigations were “dormant.”

However, multiple foreign news reports, including an early-October exposé by noted Russian opposition paper Novaya Gazeta about Burisma’s ties to a Russian fugitive named Sergei Kurchenko, have insisted there were in fact open investigations of the Ukrainian gas firm

THE LONG VIEW: GOP WAR ON VOTERS

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2011

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2014

2015

Philadelphia

REDMAP PAYS OFF

TWISTED DISTRICTS

REAPING REWARDS

LOST OVERSIGHT

WHAT FRAUD?

GOP flips 10 statehouses through “Project REDMAP,” spending millions on vicious attack ads, so it can control post-census redistricting.

2010 census triggers round of GOP redistricting using advanced mapping software and massive political data sets, creating hypergerrymandered districts.

Thanks to extreme gerrymandering, the GOP wins 33 more House seats than Democrats, despite earning 1.4 million fewer votes nationally.

The Supreme Court guts the Voting Rights Act, removing a requirement that certain states receive federal approval before changing election laws.

The GOP claims ID laws are needed because of mass voter fraud, but a major study finds only 31 cases of fraud out of 1 billion votes cast between 2000 and 2014.

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UNPRECEDENTED RESTRICTION

Forty-one states proposed laws restricting voting rights within the previous year; 19 states passed them, including voter-ID laws, proof of citizenship, and placing limits on early voting.

ATTACK OF CONSCIENCE

A Wisconsin GOP legislative aide resigns when he sees lawmakers “giddy” over ID laws’ ability to suppress minority and college-age voters.

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The story of “Joe Impedimenta” journeying from a high school exemption to public speaking to America’s second-highest office earns him a deserving spot on an inspirational list next to James Earl Jones, King George VI, and others who’ve overcome a stutter (that’s the word Biden uses) to make history with speech.

It’s impressive and speaks to an indefatigability that friends and colleagues insist is one of the best arguments for electing the man: He doesn’t give up. Biden by his own account ate buckets of shit just to survive high school. This prepared him for a career in the U. S. Senate, which is basically a meaner and more corrupt version of high school. It also provided at least some psychological practice for a potential general- election contest against a man who routinely calls him a “loser” and a “dummy” who was picked “off the trash heap” to be Obama’s vice president.

Beating his speaking demons, plus the experience of moving to the “moonscape” of a working-class neighborhood when his high-school-educated dad fell down on his luck, are central tales in Biden’s legend: “My dad would say, Get up!” he wrote.

“You’re lying in bed feeling sorry for yourself?

Get up . . . ! Kids make fun of you because you stutter, Bu-bu-bu-bu-bu-Biden? Get up!”

You can hear the echo of his father’s tirade in Biden’s current stump speech, delivered in the form of his own paternal directive to a moribund (or maybe hypersensitive/overwoke?) nation: “We’re walking around with our heads down, like ‘Woe is me!’ What’s the matter with us? We’re the United States of America!”

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GAME CHANGE

Obama with Joe and Hunter Biden at a college basketball game in 2010.

Hunter’s troubles have haunted his father’s campaign.

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Unfortunately, Biden is such a cliché-spewing, idea-borrowing goof, you can’t help but wonder if he borrowed the “Woe is me!” theme from one of the “Get up!” speeches in the Rocky series (specifically, Rocky’s “It ain’t about how hard you hit, it’s about how hard you can get hit!” rant to pre-millennial loser son Robert in 2006’s Rocky Balboa).

Carve the policy bits out of Biden’s stump presentation and what you get is something as trite as a Rocky movie, only with less-convincing action scenes. Although he rode this legend of a boiler-cleaner’s son who kept throwing punches all the way to the Senate, it’s not surprising it couldn’t carry him further. Biden’s first two White House runs were launchpad explosions.

In August 1987, at the Iowa State Fair, Biden delivered a stirring speech about the difficulty of rising above working-class origins. “Why is it that Joe Biden is the first in his family ever to go to a university?” he asked. “Why is it that my wife, who is sitting out there in the audience, is the first in her family. . . ?”

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Unfortunately, British Labor Leader Neil Kinnock had asked the same thing months earlier, in May 1987: “Why am I the first Kinnock in a thousand generations to be able to get to a university? Why is [wife] Glenys the first woman in her family in a thousand generations. . . ?”

Biden had been caught not just lifting, but morphing, to the point where he seemed to believe new life details. (He did this with the medal story this year.) He wasn’t the first person in his family to have gone to college. He started saying he came from a family of coal miners, going so far as to claim a relative who would “come up after 12 hours [in the mine] and play football.” The New York Times even reported Biden began using Kinnock’s “gestures and lyrical Welsh syntax intact.”

He dropped out of the 1988 race under a cloud, but never corrected the record. Decades later, he was still using constructions like, “No Biden I ever knew went to college” (the collegians in his family tree were Finnegans, on his mother’s side).

In 2008, Biden again led with his face when he decided to run for the White House at the nadir of public confidence in an Iraq War he backed.

He not only commenced what seemed like his last big run at power at a time when 84 percent of Democrats believed the biggest decision of his career was a mistake, he did so when a generational Democratic Party superstar was centering his own campaign against the Iraq consensus Biden helped build. Biden called Barack Obama the “first mainstream African American who is articulate and bright and clean,” one of a growing pile of unfortunate comments The Washington Post’s Richard Cohen was soon describing as the “Himalayan barrier” of Biden’s mouth.

Stomped in the Iowa caucus, earning less than one percent of the vote, Biden exited in January 2008, vowing, “I ain’t going away.” Nobody much believed him. The general consensus was “Scranton Joe” was a [Cont. on 97]

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WISCONSIN VOTE

THE PURGE

THE FRAUD MYTH

CENSUS NONSENSE

MODERN POLL TAX

Since 2008, states with strict voter-ID laws have quadrupled, from two to eight, including Tennessee, Alabama, and Kansas.

Up to 23,000 Wisconsin voters in two Dem-leaning counties couldn’t vote in part because of an ID law, roughly the same number of votes by which Trump won the state.

Sixteen million Americans were purged from voter rolls between 2014 and 2016, many from counties previously subject to oversight under the Voting Rights Act.

Falsely claiming there were millions of fraudulent votes in the election, Trump establishes a voter-fraud commission, requests states hand over sensitive voter data.

In a ploy to undercount Dem-leaning communities, the Commerce Department announces it will ask 2020 census-takers whether they are U.S. citizens.

After Florida passes a ballot measure restoring voting rights to 1.4 million ex-felons, GOP legislators move to impose onerous fees on people trying to be re-enfranchised.

HOW TO DETER VOTERS

People wait in line for as long as five hours to vote as counties no longer under the oversight of the Voting Rights Act are free to reduce the number of polling locations.

A report finds 868 fewer polling places in just the 381 counties studied.

November 2019

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Q&A

Jay Inslee Isn’t Going Away The Washington governor may be out of the 2020 race, but his ideas are shaping the future of climate policy

By JEFF GOODELL

J

AY INSLEE IS no Greta Thunberg. The 68-year-old governor of Washington state is a founding father of the climate movement, a man who speaks with the wonky wisdom of experience, not the moral outrage of a 16-year-old girl who sees her future stolen by greedy and corrupt politicians.

And whereas Thunberg has inspired millions of activists to take to the streets, Inslee never rose above two percent in the polls during his short-lived campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. But in the long run, Inslee’s contribution to fighting the climate crisis may turn out to be as important as Thunberg’s. He was the first serious presidential candidate in history to make it the central theme of his campaign. His six-part climate plan is by far the most ambitious and thoughtful road map to solving the crisis that has ever been put forward by a presidential candidate. It not only forced other Democrats to up their climate game, but large parts of it were immediately borrowed by other candidates, including Elizabeth Warren. So even if Inslee’s presidential campaign was a failure, his larger campaign to push U.S. climate politics to a new level of sophistication and ambition was a raging success, providing the policy DNA for the next generation of climate leaders.

I don’t think anyone in the climate movement expected a 16-year-old girl to galvanize millions of people. How do you explain the power of Greta Thunberg?

It’s quite a unique occurrence, when you think about social movements. Has there ever been a moment where one person captured the whole world? Gandhi caught one subcontinent. You might argue that Nelson Mandela caught the world’s heart, changed the course of history.

In some sense, Greta’s in that realm because the movement she started is worldwide; it’s organic; it is based on a high moral sense of justice and a combination of undeniable, useful morality coupled with a sense of rage, which is justified and understandable. It’s a unique moment. The world is in peril. And being saved by children is maybe not such a bad thing.

I think the message of moral indignation is not only justified but necessary to the moment. And it’s, to some degree, been a missing element of a generational responsibility. I’m a member of the Woodstock generation, and

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we would like our generation to be known for more than just one incredible weekend of rock, but rather that we didn’t destroy our grandkids’ future.

You mentioned Greta’s moral outrage.

Former U.N. climate chief Christiana Figueres argues that self-interest — economic benefit — is a better tool to inspire change.

Well, I don’t believe they’re mutually exclusive.

I wrote a book about the economic benefits of this 10, 12 years ago. I’m now standing arm in arm with kids like Greta. I consider myself the oldest climate striker in the country.

Some activists admit privately that President Trump is the best thing that’s happened to the climate movement because his moronic views and obvious corruption by the fossil-fuel industry have galvanized

GREEN AGENDA “We have reorganized our economy [before],” says Inslee. “We made 70 jeeps by 1941. We made 640,000 by 1945. Don’t tell me we can’t transition to electric cars.”

so many people to take action. Do you buy that argument?

Well, I am genetically incapable of attaching the word “best” to Donald Trump in any circumstances at any time. I really don’t share that view because I just think the urgency of the science is what’s galvanizing. If you look at the oceans report that came out [in September, from the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change], it was a bombshell that revealed the catastrophic consequences of ocean acidification and temperature changes. And that’s what’s really galvanizing this movement. So, no, I would not describe any benefit to his presidency whatsoever.

Let’s talk about the Green New Deal.

There is a lot of debate about how broad or narrow the agenda should be. The Green PHOTOGRAPH BY Annie Marie Musselman

New Deal includes environmental justice, health care for all, full employment. If the central goal is to get to zero carbon by 2050, is it smart to be pushing forward an agenda that’s festooned with many, many other things? I mean, the politics of any one of these issues is incredibly fraught.

I think that’s a fictional debate. It’s clear we want to embrace environmental justice throughout these systems. I’ve been pleased that candidates have been embracing some of the things I had originally proposed, to embed an idea that you’re not going to perpetuate income inequality. You’re going to look for ways to reduce that as you’re going about this revolution [to cut carbon]. I mean, if you look at Elizabeth Warren, who has now embraced the very concrete, certifiable guarantees of reducing fossil-fuel usage, there’s nothing in her plan that would create any such schism, or hardship, or is being overly broad. To me, that’s right on the money.

Seven in 10 registered voters support government action to address climate change. You made the climate crisis the central issue in your campaign, but you weren’t polling above two percent. What do you think about that reality gap between the 70 percent and the two percent?

I don’t believe that my electoral results are a reflection on the issue. I just simply didn’t have the horsepower or the dollars to introduce myself to the public, even on this issue. So you can’t reach a conclusion that people didn’t like my climate plan. They just didn’t know who the heck I was. And I just didn’t have enough capacity to communicate. That’s the real story of the campaign.

Climate change plays very well with progressive voters in California and Massachusetts and places like that. But the general election is likely to be won or lost in states like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, big fossil-fuel and industrial states. How does the Democratic candidate talk about the climate crisis in places like that?

Well, the same way. This is a jobs message. It’s a jobs message in Washington, where I just dedicated one of the biggest biofuel refinery operations, in the little town of Roosevelt, Washington. In Bellingham, I recently visited the largest manufacturer of solar panels in North America.

These are jobs. So this is something you can argue across the Midwest.

And this is a very rapidly moving political dynamic. I’ve seen things switch in a heartbeat.

It was true with marriage equality, and I think we’re reaching the tipping point on this issue as well. Because every time there’s a new hurricane, or fires, or floods — and every time we have a new [sustainable] industry and every time a neighbor gets an electric car — this thing is moving forward. As Wayne Gretzky said, “Don’t skate where the puck is, skate where the puck is going.”

Now that you’re out of the race, who’s the best climate candidate?

Well, quite a number of them have embraced portions of what I had proposed, and that’s

gratifying. I think they all have — not all, but quite a number of them — upped their game from when they started their campaigns, and that’s great for the party and the country. The progress we’ve made in the Democratic internal discussion, that’s really good news.

I’m particularly impressed by Senator Warren’s embrace of the idea that we have to have regulatory caps on a sector-by-sector basis [transportation, electricity, etc.]. I think her plan recognizes, as mine did, that the most necessary and effective tool at our disposal is sector-by-sector caps on carbon dioxide and particular kinds of usage of particular kinds of fuels.

If there’s a Democratic administration in 2021, Four key points from his stratdo we need a Cabinetegy to fight the climate crisis level post on climate, a Economy-wide net-zero climate czar? emissions by 2045 The administrative goal Requires utilities to deliver for the next president is to carbon-neutral energy by 2030 make sure that every agenand to be 100 percent cy has climate as a cenrenewable and zero-emission by 2035, with similarly tral part of its portfolio. aggressive goals for new And I’m not sure a czar is vehicles and buildings. the best way to do that. I will say that the more imEliminate fossil fuels portant part of this is to inCuts billions in fossil-fuel subsidies, phases out extraction culcate into every agency on public lands, and ends this basic mission statefracking. Also puts a price on ment. This has to be a cencarbon, using the revenue to tral tenet of performance. address impacts of climate The next president needs disasters. to expect the secretary of Invest $9 trillion in agriculture to help farmers clean-energy economy increase carbon sequestraFunds public-transit tion of crops. The secretary infrastructure, efficiency of defense needs to find upgrades for buildings, clean ways to get more electrical manufacturing, and cleanenergy R&D. vehicles into the military.

The secretary of transporClimate justice tation has to look for ways Guarantees 40 percent of to decarbonize our transfederal clean-energy portation system. investment goes to frontline To get anything done communities; creates a “GI Bill for energy workers” to help in Washington, you need transition fossil-fuel employees. some level of bipartisanship. How do you build that around climate, when you have a tribal atmosphere in Washington? Right now, there is zero common ground on climate.

Get rid of the filibuster [a yes vote from at least 60 senators for legislation to pass, as opposed to a simple majority vote]. It’s pretty easy.

You get a majority vote in two chambers and a visionary president, and it gets done. The filibuster has created this image that the country has to be paralyzed until the last Republican in Alabama signs off on a deal, and that’s just not the way the system was built. We need to have a democracy that can act in the face of life-threatening peril. If you get rid of the filibuster, then the will of the majority will be followed, which is that we shouldn’t let ourselves perish worshiping at the altar of oil-andgas special interests.

INSLEE’S PLAN

The second thing I would say is that more and more Republican citizens are now asking for action on climate change. It just has not reached the political elected class. We are developing a more unified tribe, which is a tribe of Homo sapiens in America. And more and more Republicans are joining that effort. But the word hasn’t gotten to their politicians because they’re still answering to special interests and lobbyists.

The more I think about this, the more I understand this challenge as a lack of imagination, in two ways. One, some people can’t imagine a world that is as degraded as science tells us it’s going to be. They have trouble imagining a world without coral reefs, or a way to grow grapes in California; they can’t imagine that.

But more importantly, they can’t imagine a world where we are driving electric cars, where we are powering the grid with a combination of renewable energy and have much more energyefficient homes.

We have done this before, with the mobilization for World War II. We have reorganized our economy. We have built new technologies.

We have reoriented the kind of vehicles that we produce. We made 70 jeeps by 1941. We made 640,000 by 1945. Don’t tell me we can’t transition to electric cars.

I understand the World War II analogy, but the other reality about climate politics is that it’s always getting pushed out of the foreground by some seemingly more urgent crisis, whether it’s a school shooting or immigration or impeachment. If a Democrat wins in 2020, he or she is going to have a lot of stuff on their plate. How do you make sure that climate is at the top?

I think that we need to not be paralyzed by the scope of the entire task. It’s like the guy who was climbing a mountain and fell over a cliff.

The guy fell 150 feet and shattered his femurs and pelvis and everything. He had to crawl, like, five miles on his elbows. What he learned was the only way he had a chance was to say to himself, “Look, I’m not even thinking about getting to that tent five miles from here. All I’m going to do is, I’m going to try to get to that rock.”

And I think that’s a metaphor for what we need to do here, which is, we’ve got to pick one action we can do today or in the next month and do that — get to the next rock. And that’ll keep you from being paralyzed by the enormity of this. If you take that action and put that on an equal footing with your immediate goals with impeachment or whatever else, we’ll get there just like he did.

Except to cut carbon pollution in half by 2030 and to zero by 2050 is going to take more rapid motion than just crawling along on our elbows.

Listen, I think it’s important not to be dissuaded by the difficulty of the task. I mean, yeah, it’s a tall mountain we’ve got to climb. But you do it one step at a time.

So what’s the next rock?

November 2020. Democrats need to win the presidency. And I feel good about [the party] being in a position to do that.

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M U S I C I A N S O N M U S I C I A N S

Elton John & Lana Del Rey Pop’s most enigmatic star visits her idol at his Beverly Hills home for a conversation about meditation, Seventies L.A., songwriting, and why the best persona is none at all

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ANA DEL REY is sitting across from Elton John in the kitchen of his Beverly Hills home, where she’s about to talk with her musical hero. But there’s a problem. “Wait a minute, my notes!” she says. “I have 13 pages! Where is my purse?” Elton calls for his staff to help, but Del Rey jumps out of her chair and heads outside to her pickup truck, a black Chevy Colorado with a broken headlight. A couple of minutes later, she returns with a stapled stack of pages.

Del Rey is one of music’s most enigmatic stars, someone whose presence can intimidate even other artists. (“I love Lana,” Billie Eilish recently told Howard Stern. “Around her I just turn into a little, floppy, baby child.”) But there’s no evidence of that mysterious persona today — Del Rey is excited, funny, and maybe a little nervous. “All right!” Elton says as she first walks through the doors of his surprisingly cozy home, full of pop art, with a zebra-print rug and mirrored walls. “I’ve been listening to your album all morning,” he tells her as they hug. “It’s really great. Number Three on Billboard, 108,000 copies sold. Way to go!” Del Rey erupts. “Oh, my God, you know my statistics,” she says, laughing.

“Oh,” Elton says, “I know everything.”

Elton is talking about Norman Fucking Rockwell!, Del Rey’s fifth album. After eight years living in New York, she moved to L.A. and started working with producer Jack Antonoff.

It radically changed her sound. Del Rey carves out her own darkly alluring vision of the California dream as she sings about listening to Crosby, Stills, and Nash at house parties and falling for a “self-loathing poet, resident Lauren Canyon know-it-all.” Elton says that her new album reminds him of the era when he first came to Los Angeles, in 1970: “You drove around in a convertible, and you listened to Joni Mitchell and

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Photograph by R YAN M C G INLEY

M U S I C I A N S

you listened to Jackson Browne and James Taylor, and it was just a magical time.”

Elton recalls that period in his new autobiography, Me, where he chronicles his journey — from his difficult childhood to addiction struggles, with behind-the-scenes stories about everyone from Princess Diana to Elvis. “I thought, ‘I’m never going to remember anything,’ Elton says.

“But once you open that can of worms, it all starts coming out.” He sees the book as a companion to two other retrospective projects: the 2019 film musical Rocketman, and his three-year Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour, which may end up being one of the highest-grossing tours of all time. He played yesterday in Anaheim, California, and has another show there tonight. “I’m really enjoying it,” he says. “If I wasn’t, it would be an awful long way to go without enjoying something. There’s something about the American audiences. They’re more effusive. More stoned.”

Before their interview begins, Elton excuses himself to change into a sparkling red, white, and blue tracksuit and bedazzled sunglasses — his preshow outfit. “Oh, you little cutie!” Lana says as he enters the kitchen. “Can I take a picture, just for my bedside table?” she asks. “Sure,” Elton says, sitting down, crossing his arms, and smirking for the camera. “I know it’s a little creepy,” Lana says, “but whatever.”

LANA I read your book. It reminds me of when I read Chronicles, by Bob Dylan, or The Mayor of MacDougal Street [by Dave Van Ronk], and I was like, “Oh, that’s how you do it. This is how I get from where I am to where I’m going.” It was fun to read because everybody always asks me, “Well, how do you do it?” And I’m like, “Well, you play everywhere for no money with anybody who asks you, and do anything you can.”

ELTON Exactly. And you love it, and you don’t care if you don’t have any money.

LANA You almost kind of like it.

ELTON When I look back on the days when I was getting 15 quid a week, playing all those shows, I don’t know how we managed to do it, but it was the most fun. I was just having the time of my life. I would have liked to have been in a more prestigious band. But when I did start to become successful, I drew on all those experiences. I was playing with people like Patti LaBelle and Major Lance. Watching them taught me so much. You have to have that bit of where you’re in the van, playing shit clubs. People who don’t go through that shit never appreciate what they get, and they fade away too soon.

LANA I agree.

ELTON But listen, you survived. You came through that awful thing in that Saturday Night Live [in 2012]. Which was so distressing for someone like me to see someone so crucified. I’ve watched it, and it wasn’t that bad!

LANA It wasn’t terrible!

ELTON It wasn’t terrible at all. I don’t know what the agenda was there, but where was the #MeToo movement there?

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Oh, you said it, not me!

ELTON That’s the first time I ever talked to you.

I rang you up and said, “Listen, I just want to offer my help. I know you’re sober and everything, but just don’t take any notice of these people.” Most people, that would have flattened them forever. It was an outrageous assault.

LANA What’s weird is, it’s the one night in all my time performing that I wasn’t nervous. I remember the intention I had. Looking back, there was a more eccentric performative approach to it. I was thinking about Maria Callas, or someone darker coming through.

ELTON You were still a very, very young artist.

I don’t think you should have been put in that position so early on in your career.

LANA What’s funny is, I was selling out arenas for a year before — that’s how the guy who runs it heard about me, because he thought, “This is strange. This girl is selling out arenas, and she has two songs.”

ELTON You recovered from that incredible shellacking. I’m sure it gave you a lot of trauma.

But it also gave you incredible backbone. And I didn’t think it was a major fuck-up. I saw Ashlee Simpson and, yeah, that’s a major fuck-up. That’s funny. Not to her it isn’t, but it’s very funny to watch.

LANA I’m not laughing!

ELTON Anyway. With your record now, the thing I’ve noticed about Norman Rockwell is that it has such a flow. I don’t think you’ve ever made a record with such a flow to it. I was listening this morning. David came in and said, “This is the sort of record that you’re going to love forever.” I don’t think I’ve heard a record like this LANA

Mystique is your greatest asset, because you don’t want people to know too much. I never do interviews anymore.

You have what Prince had. Nobody knew the fuck what Prince was like.

—E LT O N J O H N

for so long. It has a mood. Why did you choose the title?

LANA It’s not something that I felt like was in my ether, or future, as a title. But I think Jack was sort of my Bernie [Taupin, Elton’s lyricist] in that situation. It’s not like I’m always trying to evaluate the state of the American dream, or my version of the white picket fence, but there was some kind of version of where we both felt the culture was.

ELTON Ironically, the music that you’ve created fits the image of a Norman Rockwell painting.

You could have sung these songs in the Fifties.

They’re kind of timeless songs. It’s the sort of record you could hear Sarah Vaughan singing, or Dinah Washington. They’re singer’s songs.

LANA Thank you so much. To the point where, being in rehearsals now, getting ready for these bigger shows, it’s almost a little stressful, because what I’ve written is so much of a different mood from what I’ve been playing live for, like, 10 years. I’m like, “I think I need to just do the whole show differently.”

ELTON You’re going to have to think about it.

Because if you play a lot of these songs . . . Playing a live show, I always think, is a bit like having sex. You start quite raucous, and then you slow down, and then you build up to a climax.

LANA I start the opposite, for what it’s worth!

[Laughs] Slow burn!

ELTON How big is the band?

LANA It was a four-piece, it’s a three-piece now. And I’ve got two girls who do backup, and they do some Sixties girl-group movement stuff.

ELTON It’s almost tempting to do the whole album from start to finish.

LANA That might work better than trying to fit it in with some of the songs from 10 years ago.

ELTON I think some of those songs will fit in if you do it right. The mistake I made was when I played Wembley Stadium in 1975, I brought the Eagles to England for the first time. It was them, the Beach Boys, Chaka Khan. I played the Captain Fantastic record from start to finish live for the first time. And after the fifth song, you could hear people wanting to kill themselves.

LANA Oh, no!

ELTON It’s horrible. Then you get to song six and think, “I don’t want to be here anymore!”

LANA Pull out the hits!

ELTON The record is also very simple. There’s hardly any arrangements at all. Piano, drums, and guitar. And some synths, here and there?

And there’s a beautiful brass arrangement.

LANA I think that might have been the Mellotron. It almost sounds like a Spanish horn, but it’s not. We call it “the Norman sound.”

ELTON The Mellotron’s a greatly undervalued instrument. I’m so glad it’s had a renaissance. I grew up in an era when the Moody Blues introduced the Mellotron. There were no samples or anything like that. All I had was a Farfisa organ.

LANA I just saw them at the Bowl, the Moody Blues. They’re right up there for me. By the way, everybody waited for an hour and 40 minutes

for them to play “Nights in White Satin”! We were like [pretends to check watch] . . .

ELTON Well, of course they’ve got to leave that until the end. Did you have the songs written before you went in the studio?

LANA I only had one song completely written, Everything else, I think, was done in the studio, which I’ve never done. I think the best stuff was recorded in three weeks.

ELTON You never know. The studio is a complete crapshoot. That’s why it’s important that you had Jack, because you have to have another pair of musical ears. Not just a pair of technical ears. I’ve noticed with all Jack’s productions, you can tell what he’s putting in. I never understand people who fire their producers after one great record. Duffy with Bernard Butler is a perfect example.

LANA Duffy, the blond singer? Where has she gone?

ELTON Well, she made that first record, which was so great, and then she fired her producer and it all went pear-shaped. You look at all the major acts who [kept] their producers — Springsteen, the Beatles, the Stones, myself. It’s really important. It’s like fashion. Why does fashion have to change every five minutes? It doesn’t.

This constant desire for something new.

LANA Thinking about your career, you were playing, first, really, at three years old. So there’s this prodigious element.

ELTON Yeah, but I was playing by ear, just because I loved it.

LANA Yeah, but some people can’t play and sing. I would never play guitar and sing.

ELTON And I’m hopeless at lyrics. People say, “Oh, for God’s sake, you should be able to write lyrics, you’re very verbose, you’re very intelligent.” And it’s a huge insult to people who write lyrics, because I just don’t have it. I love to get Bernie’s written work on the page. I know nothing about what’s coming, and then the story comes and I’m off. It’s like listening to a play on the radio when you’re a kid; your vision comes up in your mind, and it’s just incredible. When you write a song, at that particular moment it’s the best song you’ve ever written. It’s like giving birth to a baby.

LANA I’m the same way, thinking about them as children. If I know there’s an album that people don’t like, I don’t think of myself first. I think, “Oh, I feel bad for the music!”

ELTON Exactly.

LANA When you were finding the melody for “Your Song,” did you know right away that you wanted to pick that melody for the chorus? Do you remember that moment?

ELTON I don’t have a melody until I get a chord.

That’s written in E-flat, so I started with the chord in E-flat, and just went. That’s the way it happens with Bernie. It was just a magical connection of chords. And then it all came together, and then you think, “Oh, my God!” LANA Were your mom and your grandma really in the same house, like in the movie?

I read a book in college that talked about burning every single bridge except for the one that led to your greatest desire. And I thought, ‘My greatest desire is to sing.’

—L A N A D E L R E Y

ELTON My grandmother wasn’t. My mother was. It was a little apartment. We just had a kitchen, a living room with a piano, and Bernie would write in the bedroom.

LANA That’s cute. In the movie, when you sing, “Yours are the sweetest eyes I’ve ever seen,” did you actually look at Bernie like that?

ELTON Probably. He wasn’t in the room, but . . .

LANA But at the time, those were the kindest eyes you had seen.

ELTON Yeah. He was my buddy. He was my brother I never had. We were soulmates. We did everything together. We went to the cinema together, went to the pub, everything together.

LANA That is so special.

ELTON It was just the most exciting time. And to actually make it and have someone to share it with was so nice. When I saw the film at Cannes, when he comes into treatment and I’m washing the floor . . . I just lost it. Because he did come to see me in treatment.

LANA It’s interesting in your book when you talk about dropping into Mama Cass Elliot’s party, and Crosby, Stills, Nash, Young, Joni, everybody was there. They’re not in the Canyon now, but I just feel such a connection to that singer- songwriter world. And you know, my girlfriends, like Weyes Blood or Zella Day, or [friends] like Father John, or Jonathan Wilson, they’re making album-albums. And a lot of people I hang out with are making longer records. . . . When you were talking about early touring, you would see the Stones having a whiskey somewhere. I see something closer to that here. I was in New York for eight years, but the Strokes were already gone. There wasn’t really a camaraderie. There’s a lot more music here.

I could call a bunch of people and have them come down and play.

ELTON I think the template that you’re talking about — the early Seventies and late Sixties in Los Angeles — the music was so good, you just can’t knock it. I arrived here at the start of stereo music on FM radio. Before that, there was only AM radio, and you heard the same tracks. When FM came out, a lot of radio stations really went out on a limb and you would hear people like Frank Zappa and Hot Rats playing next to Ray Charles and Zeppelin. It was so great because people were experimenting. They were using Ravi Shankar. Miles Davis was getting into funk.

Wendy Carlos was doing Switched-On Bach. It was a great time of “anything goes.” To hear it on the radio, instead of having to listen to just pop music all the time, was fucking amazing.

LANA I wanted to ask, do you think there could be another revival of that kind of real togetherness, and community, and something superdifferent, emerging out of rock right now?

ELTON I wish. It would be fantastic. But I don’t think there are the great musicians around that there were in those days. I’m talking about the greats. Also, it’s about the era you were living in, the drugs that were available, the feeling of community, the feeling of love and togetherness. I think that all contributed to it. I think what Pro Tools and everything else did, they took the musicianship away from people, and people made records in their bedrooms instead of with each other in a bar. In Nashville, you don’t see that.

You have people playing together all the time.

And maybe here too. I do four radio shows a month; I sit down and I listen to all the new stuff they send me, and a lot of it is from people who are writing their first songs in a bedroom. Ninety percent of the time it’s horrible, 10 percent of the time it’s good. It would be much better to get a band. These fucking girls from Nashville, Brandi Carlile or Maren Morris, the Highwomen, these girls are on a mission.

LANA I need to listen to that record.

ELTON These are amazing girls. You, Billie Eilish, Kacey Musgraves — I mean, the girls are leading the way. They’re writing about their life.

That’s what moves me. There are very few male singers that move me. Sam Fender is my top pick for the guys.

LANA I love that.

What about L.A. makes it such a great backdrop for evocative music?

LANA I think if I could sum it up in one word, it’s “sun.” It’s perfect every day.

ELTON It’s so lovely to be here [even] in January, and that is very conducive to making music, I think. When I got here, it all made sense. It looks like it sounds.

LANA That’s it!

ELTON But I do like misery. All my favorite songs I’ve written are the saddest songs, probably. I could listen to Leonard Cohen on a loop.

Your songs, they’re not miserable songs at all, but they evoke a pathos inside of [Cont. on 94]

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Diddy & DJ Khaled N A SUITE at the Ritz Carlton in downtown Atlanta, Sean “Diddy” Combs instructs DJ Khaled to walk through a cloud of cologne. He’s creating a vibe, one that will carry the pair of hip-hop mega-producers into a 2 Chainz birthday party later. “I love being a rapper!” Diddy says at one point, completely unprompted.

The two have a long history together; Khaled first encountered Diddy in the Nineties when he was a new radio personality and Diddy was one of the most dominant figures in hip-hop, as an artist and the CEO of Bad Boy Records, the home of the Notorious B.I.G., Faith Evans, Mase, and more. Today, the rapper-producersocial media savant is the most obvious inheritor of Diddy’s unique mix of musical drive, omnidirectional marketing genius, and ecstatic self-promotion. “He’s the blueprint,” says Khaled, whose new album, Father of Asahd, features Travis Scott, Justin Bieber, Beyoncé, and others.

I

How did you two first meet?

KHALED I was street team. I don’t think Puff realized there was a street team for Bad Boy. Then after that, in Miami, me and Puff met while I was on the radio, breakin’ records, spinnin’ records.

Met him through [Fat] Joe. Met him through a lot of people. We just became real brothers.

DIDDY I can’t tell you about the first time I met him, the real truth. There was stipulations.

KHALED Yeah. Some stories gotta be untold.

DIDDY God is great. We don’t have to live that way anymore.

KHALED I wouldn’t be able to do a lot of the things I’m doing now if it wasn’t for Puff Daddy.

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When I got the opportunity to do Icon on Icon [The two have renamed our “Musicians on Musicians” issue], it had to be Diddy. He’s one of my biggest inspirations. I remember starting as a DJ and turning into a promoter. He opened those doors. From hitmaker to businessman, as a hustler, as a father, the drive he has inspires me. I feel like I have a similar drive. I got my hustle.

I’m about getting that money. When it comes down to producing hits, I’m a hitmaker.

DIDDY Hitmaking motherfucker!

KHALED I’ve always loved your ad-libs. I tell people every day that a lot of those hits without those ad-libs ain’t hits. Not taking away from those artists, but it was a smash when you added those ad-libs here and there. Then you fuck around and do a verse. Then turn around and do a whole routine of dancing. Then after that, he’d go and sell you clothes. Then [Puff ] will go and offer you a drink. He owns all of it.

Diddy, what have you learned from Khaled?

DIDDY I thought I was an inspirational person.

You know how you have to practice what you preach? [Khaled] really taught me that. He sees me. He sees the positive energy that I try to put out in the universe. There’s times that I may be feeling down and not even listening to the positive vibration I’m putting out there. He’s a constant reminder of, like, “I haven’t heard from you lately. Make sure your spirit stay up.” I learned self-love [from him]. Watching him take time to himself, talk to God, enjoy time with his family. It gave me instructions on some things that maybe I was lacking [from] being such a work machine.

How do you define your jobs?

DIDDY When I look at what I do, I call myself an inventor: an inventor of culture, [Cont. on 92]

Photograph by WAYNE L AWRENCE

DIDDY: STYLING BY DEREK ROCHE. SKIN BY ROCIO DE LA CRUZ. HAIR BY CURTIS SMITH. DJ KHALED: STYLING BY TERRELL JONES.

The insatiably driven hip-hop producers have had such similar careers, and for good reason. Says Khaled, “He’s the blueprint”

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Billie Joe Armstrong & Billie Eilish ILLIE JOE ARMSTRONG seems shocked when Billie Eilish tells him her favorite Green Day song. It’s not a hit; it’s “All by Myself,” the acoustic hidden track on 1994’s Dookie. “Oh, that’s Tré Cool!” says Armstrong, clarifying that the band’s drummer sings the song. “I know it is!” says Eilish. Adds Armstrong, “That’s a dirty little song.”

Though Dookie came out seven years before Eilish was born, you can see why she would love it. Its themes — boredom, anxiety, self-doubt — are ones she takes to twisted extremes on her own breakthrough, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? Eilish, 17, has been listening to Green Day since she was nine. Her older brother and musical collaborator, Finneas O’Connell, was such a huge fan that as an early teen he emulated everything about Armstrong, down to the “little undone tie and the guyliner.” “He was basically a downgrade of you,” Eilish says.

“Well,” Armstrong says, laughing, “he’s an upgrade now.”

The two are in the back of Armstrong’s ’63 Ford Falcon in Los Angeles. He bought the car

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for $1,000 on Craigslist, rebuilt the engine himARMSTRONG I know this sounds [weird], but I self, and had it brought in from his house in always gravitate toward music that sounds like Newport Beach for today’s photo shoot. freedom. And that’s what I get from your music.

“It’s fire,” says Eilish, who just got It’s like an earnest person that’s exher first car, a black Dodge Challenger pressing themselves and incorporat(“my dragon baby”). Excited that Eiing new sounds. Some of it sounds like lish wanted to sit down with him, he jazz to me, if that’s cool to say? came with a box of “Billie”-inscribed EILISH Yeah!

Your music mechanic shirts for her. Armstrong, ARMSTRONG But the lyrics are also sounds like 47, is excited to step out after a year just very real. That’s important when freedom to in the studio making Green Day’s 13th you’re surrounded by things that me. A song album, Father of All Motherfuckers, sound synthetic and not very real. like ‘Wish which has them incorporating soul, EILISH Thank you. I’ve been surYou Were Gay’ New Wave, and vintage R&B into their prised people like my music. Because is a rad song, sound. The band just announced a there’s such a world of liking nothing, and I think it summer 2020 stadium run with Weemusic that’s not really doing anything. saves lives.” zer and Fall Out Boy, while Eilish is I remember having this conversation getting ready for a U.S. arena run kickwith my mom about “Bury a Friend.” ing off in March. Though she and ArmWe were like, “Nobody’s gonna give a strong have a lot in common, somefuck, because the lyrics are ‘I want to —BI L L I E JOE A R M S T R O N G times their generation gap becomes end me.’ ” And I really, honestly did clear when they’re together. Before not think anyone would care. That’s the photo shoot, Armstrong looks into why this whole ride has been so weird. a stylist’s mirror and says, “My eyebrows are on ARMSTRONG That song, you’re talking about fleck.” Eilish breaks into laughter. “On fleck?” she death. That’s as real as it gets. That’s real, real says. “It’s fleek!” stuff. When I was writing music when I was real-

Photograph by B RAD O GBANNA

EILISH: HAIR BY TAMMY YI AT EXCLUSIVE ARTISTS; MAKEUP BY ROB RUMSEY. ARMSTRONG: GROOMING BY STANTON DUKE SNYDER.

The teen-pop superstar asks her hero about early Green Day, staying sane in the industry, and that time he got into a fight with a guy in the audience

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ly young, it was always important to me to feel like I’m writing songs that I can sing 20 years later. A song like “Basket Case,” it’s a song about losing your mind. As you get older, it gets more and more real. And that’s what creates longevity.

EILISH Did you try to do that? Because it’s so genuine, what you did.

ARMSTRONG We’ve seen so many different trends come in and out. It’s hard, because that’s the golden carrot people dangle in front of your face: “Do I want to sound like somebody else so that I can stay relevant?” At all costs, it was “no.”

Even though it is tempting to sort of sell out, you have to keep being real. When it comes down to it, I have to wake up and look at myself every morning and respect what I do. And I don’t love everything I’ve ever done.

In 1994, “Dookie” sold 10 million copies. What do you remember about that time in your life?

ARMSTRONG Gosh. I was only 22. I had a kid at the same time, and I was married. So it was a crazy year. I remember being pretty freaked out. I was playing a kind of music that had never been on that kind of scale before. But what I really wanted to do was keep working, and keep writing songs. I never wanted to feel like I was taking advantage of the situation. I didn’t really stop and smell the roses. Later on, I was kind of like, “Did I enjoy myself enough? Was that fun?”

Because the feeling of when you first get popular as a musician, that never happens twice. After that, you have to keep creating new stuff to keep things interesting in your life.

EILISH Did you enjoy it?

ARMSTRONG Not all the time. I was sort of lost at sea. There’s extreme highs, and you’re playing to a new audience really excited to hear you.

But I think what was really important to me was being real. I think I worried about that too much, the part where you’re thinking, “I need to stay rooted at all costs.” Sometimes I would get very hardheaded about that. And the record after that, Insomniac, was a really dark record. I was pretty numb to everything.

EILISH [My next album] haunts me. There was a period where I was like, “Do I even enjoy music?” It just felt like so much touring. And I don’t mean the shows. The shows are always my favorite part. But it was just traveling and being alone all the time, on a cold bus in Europe, horrible food, and when you come back, everyone’s kind of moved on from you. This last tour I went on was the first I’ve ever enjoyed. I feel like I have this amazing thing that now I actually see.

ARMSTRONG Yeah, you go out on tour, you’ll be out for a year, and people get married, things change. You have to have good people around you, and good distractions to keep you sane.

EILISH Hey, I don’t even know how to ask this, but what gave you the urge to, like, moon the audience, or kick people in the head and stuff?

ARMSTRONG Oh, Jesus, kicking people in the head? Did I kick somebody in the head?

EILISH There’s a video that’s the hardest shit I’ve ever seen. There was somebody in the crowd

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doing something, and you just jump on the perEILISH Yeah, on the lock screen on my phone. son in the crowd. That was the hardest, most ARMSTRONG Oh, that wallpaper. Awesome! gangster shit. Like, what made you be so dope?

You both were introduced to music through your ARMSTRONG I think someone was getting kind siblings. What was playing in the house? of aggro, and then we started having a back-andEILISH We grew up on everything. I got all forth yelling at each other. And then I was literalmy music from my parents and my brother. It ly fighting with someone in the crowd. I wouldn’t ranged from the Beatles and Green Day and My recommend it. Please don’t do it.

Chemical Romance to, like, Sarah McLachlan EILISH I won’t, but it’s dope that you did it. and Peggy Lee and Frank Sinatra.

Also, I don’t have the same crowds. It’s a very difARMSTRONG When did hip-hop come in for ferent type of crowd. you?

ARMSTRONG I saw your show. It’s the same enEILISH That was when I was 11 or 12. I rememergy. It was such a good show. Everybody was ber finding Tyler, the Creator and just feeling, singing along; it was like going to a football game “Wow, this is what I’ve been needing to have as, in England. But they were singing along to dark like, a part of me.” stuff. It was almost like being in a cathedral.

ARMSTRONG I think it’s great, because with all EILISH I have never been so conscious of myof those influences, it’s like you’re part of a genself during a show than knowing that Billie Joe eration where music becomes, like, genre-fluid.

Armstrong was in the crowd. I’m so glad you EILISH Oh, I can’t stand that! came to that one and not a shitty one.

ARMSTRONG Stand what?

ARMSTRONG Do you have bad shows?

EILISH Genres!

EILISH I will say that the bad shows are still . . .

ARMSTRONG I thought you meant “genre-fluid.”

ARMSTRONG It’s all good.

Like, “What you said was bullshit!”

EILISH It’s just my stupid brain deciding, “Oh, EILISH I bet it was hard to kind of be in a world that show sucked.” where it was only genres. Right now, it’s kind of ARMSTRONG When you play that many shows, like there’s no limit to what genre you can put it just becomes part of your day. You wake up yourself in. There’s still a little bit of a barrier, and you’re at a new venue. Having an off night but I think when people were trying to be not evfor a show is basically like having an off day. erything else, there was a line. But people were Some days you’re more self-conscious. Other like, “Wait, we like everything else!” days you’re, like, streaking down the road.

ARMSTRONG That’s good. Things happen so Billie, how did you learn to deal with rapidly now. It’s like people go through the pressures of touring? a cycle of music like it’s a fucking InsARMSTRONG For me, it’s learning tagram page, where you just sit there what gratitude means to you. My life and flick through pictures all the time. could have definitely gone in a difI think it’s a new frontier for [Green I have never ferent direction. I’m just glad people Day], which is really fun. We’re not been more show up. Now, if I have an off show, gonna have a record deal, which is self-conscious I kind of don’t care. Things are supawesome. I’m able to put out whatevthan when posed to be messy. Life is messy. I’m er I feel like anytime. I did the Longyou came to supposed to sing like shit one night. shot record, and I got to put stuff out my show. I’m My guitar is gonna break. Mike’s gonna on SoundCloud. So it’s like it doesn’t glad you came annoy me. I’m gonna annoy Mike. matter if you’re in a punk-rock band to that one, Tré’s gonna throw a drumstick at me. or in a pop group or hip-hop. It doesn’t and not a But that’s the part of what drew me matter anymore. shitty one. to punk, because it’s all one big imEILISH Where did you find the kid in perfection. It’s like taking trash and the “Jesus of Suburbia” video? making it beautiful. It’s OK to be ugly.

A R M ST RO N G Oh, he [Lou Taylor That’s one thing I really liked that you Pucci] was an actor in a movie, Thumb—BI L L I E E I L I SH said to your fans when I saw your sucker, this little art independent show. You said something about not thing. Sam Bayer, the director, got him. having it together.

What advice would you give your younger self?

EILISH I told them, “It’s OK that you’re all ARMSTRONG I really don’t have any advice beugly.” cause when I was that young, I wouldn’t have lisARMSTRONG Is that what you said? tened to anybody.

EILISH No. I’m just fucking with you.

EILISH I don’t really believe in advice. SomeARMSTRONG You said something about how times when I’m given advice, I do the oppo“you’re in the right place if you’re crazy.” I think site. It’s just how I’ve been my whole life. Noabout that a lot, because that’s what a lot of peobody has ever been through exactly what you’re ple come home with. A song like “Wish You Were going through, ever. [Billie Joe] is the only perGay,” that’s just a rad song, but I think it saves son that’s ever going to live through what he has. lives — I do.

So no one can know except this dude, and the EILISH I can’t believe I’m in the room with the fact that he’s still sane, he’s still gorgeous, he’s guy who was my wallpaper. still him, having gone through all this shit? It’s ARMSTRONG I was your wallpaper? like, I don’t even know. PATRICK DOYLE

Jenny Lewis & Justin Vernon Two indie heroes compare notes on East Coast vs. West Coast rap and Dylan’s Christian years

’M SITTING HERE trying not to choke up,” Justin Vernon says, “listening to Jenny Lewis say such nice things about me.” It’s a laid-back Friday afternoon in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, which has been Bon Iver’s home base since Vernon founded the avant-pop band back in 2006. He has been a fan of Lewis’ since Give Up, her 2003 album with the Postal Service, which “took over my little town,” he remembers. That led him to see her band Rilo Kiley play in 2005, and he wore out her country-influenced 2006 solo album, Rabbit Fur Coat, recorded with L.A. duo the Watson Twins. Lewis has been following Bon Iver since their 2007 breakthrough, For Emma, Forever Ago. She was especially impressed by Vernon’s decision to break out of folk by collaborating with artists like Kanye West. “It was so exciting,” she says. “I was a fan of indie rock and hip-hop, but that was the first time I thought, ‘Oh, this is possible?’ It was the coolest thing in the world.”

LEWIS HAIR AND MAKEUP BY AMBER YOUNG

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weirder music, growing up in my early twenties. When I had the chance to make [2007’s] For Emma, I had enough influences and had done enough weird shit with weird bands that I could try to leave everything behind, and run from pattern, or LEWIS [There are] two questions I something? Playing guitar in the last 10 wrote down for you. One was, East years hasn’t felt natural anymore, until I met Quincy Coast or West Coast rap? And the secrecently — it’s back.

Jones recently. ond was, Ford or Chevy?

LEWIS Do you play guitar on the new He said Duke VERNON Definitely Chevy. My car in record?

Ellington high school was a 1996 Chevy Beretta, VERNON A little. I’ve come back to told him, ‘It’s the last time they made the Beretta. the love of the simplicity of the thing. your job to LEWIS Dope.

LEWIS I play very little guitar in the decategorize VERNON And East Coast rap. But shows — I think I play guitar on two music.’ I can’t then again, Kendrick’s sort of my king songs. And my whole last record was stop thinking right now. . . . I really get tired of the on piano. . . . I find it easier to write on about that. genre thing. I met Quincy Jones recentpiano. Every day, I make some kind ly. Quincy [said] that Duke Ellington of music. And your thing doesn’t altold him, “It’s your job to decategoways keep working. You hit one thing rize music.” I can’t stop thinking about too hard, and you have to switch it up.

—J UST I N V E R NON that. Indie, hip-hop — I think [genres] VERNON I feel like there are songs get in the way superhard. in instruments. I got a $179 Silvertone How has songwriting changed for you? acoustic off eBay when I was living in VERNON I started out very much with very North Carolina. Instantly, the day I got it, I reclassic strumming songwriting: the John Prine, corded “Flume.” I still have the guitar, but there’s the three-, four-chord thing. And then doing no more songs left in it.

Photograph by D ANIEL D ORSA

Do you ever get nervous when it’s time to release something completely different?

VERNON I’ve learned to not ask for reassurance. I don’t think doubt is a great trait. As an artist in 2019, it’s, “Well! We did our best. Who cares? It’s probably going to sound fine.”

LEWIS And sometimes you’ve got to suck, if you’re going to be a lifer artist. That’s why I love the Grateful Dead, because sometimes they suck.

VERNON So bad.

LEWIS And you have to have that. If you’re perfect all the time, there’s something wrong with you. You have to take chances that are weird.

VERNON I think Dylan’s shitty albums are still crushingly good.

LEWIS Dylan’s so interesting because you appreciate the era when you reach that age. I’m obsessed with the Christian-era Dylan stuff. I wasn’t ready for that at 27.

VERNON “When He Returns,” that’s my shit.

What are you two listening to now?

LEWIS Tierra Whack.

VERNON Really? Whack World is my favorite thing I’ve heard in two years. Her rapping, the songwriting . . . even beyond the novelty of the 15-minute album, she’s way past the novelty. It’s such fucking good music. BRENDAN KLINKENBERG

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Carrie Brownstein & Maggie Rogers A pop star talks to her punk hero about Patti Smith, reinvention, and motorcycles

AGGIE ROGERS HAS a lot of memories tied to Sleater-Kinney, from discovering their explosive 2005 album, The Woods, when she was in middle school to driving around listening to them on repeat while on vacation in Iceland. “I’ve had all these special moments interacting with your work,” she tells Carrie Brownstein, the guitarist-singer of the Portland trio, who’ve been adding nuance and power to their groundbreaking riot-grrrl rock & roll for more than two decades.

Rogers comes prepared with questions, which makes sense because she was once an aspiring music journalist, before Pharrell Williams visited her class at NYU and his reaction to her song “Alaska” went viral. Brownstein, it turns out, is a big fan of Rogers’ debut album, which combines synthy Eighties-style pop with Seventies singer-songwriter introspection. Both Brownstein and Rogers are at pivotal points in their careers; Sleater-Kinney just released their first album in four years, The Center Won’t Hold, produced by St. Vincent. But right before it was released, longtime drummer Janet Weiss left the group due to creative differences. Rogers, meanwhile, is trying to figure out a creative way forward on her second album while touring heavily. Brownstein isn’t worried about her: “The next thing,” she tells Rogers, “will come around and surprise you.”

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I have a lot of “gotcha” questions.

I love those! This isn’t a gotcha question, I promise: I was actually at your show at La Cigale [in Paris in 2015]. The show was fucking amazing, and afterward I was just buzzing.

BROWNSTEIN Are you going to tell me that we met five years ago?

ROGERS Sort of! I really wanted to say thank you. I went to speak to you outside and you introduced yourself and asked me what my name was, and you’re the only person who has ever done that in a celebrity context. It has stuck with me in this really powerful way. I want to just say thank you, because it has totally changed the way that I interact with people.

BROWNSTEIN ROGERS

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I can’t really operate in a hierarchical dynamic. I don’t want to move through the world as “somebody.” So I just would rather, like, neutralize it as quickly as I can.

ROGERS I don’t even really remember the first time I heard Sleater-Kinney, because it was always a part of my life.

BROWNSTEIN I feel really fortunate you don’t necessarily remember it, because I think a huge privilege of being around for a while is for people to not remember a time without your music.

Because that’s how I feel about so many bands.

ROGERS I really powerfully remember reading your book [Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl].

To read about the experience of a woman doing this in a really hands-on, grounded way was really special to me. And understanding the different kind of road maps this career can take. Because obviously I was never like, “I’m going to get famous off a viral video and then buy a house.”

BROWNSTEIN How could you cook that up in your brain? . . . You’ve been writing for a long time, but this is your first big record. It’s something you think about your whole life, and then you get to put that out there. You should be embracing that because you only get that at the beginning. Later you become aware of precedent, and you start to think, “OK, well, I’ve done that, I did this on this record, so I have to start shifting.”

ROGERS What’s your relationship to precedent?

You’ve been making records for 25 years.

BROWNSTEIN I know, it’s obscene. I think the way that people perceived our new record was very troubling for some. A lot of people loved it, and then there were people that had a really hard time with the assertion that we were willing to sort of let go of tools and methodology that people had become very accustomed to within our band. So precedent for me is always something to respect, but to use as something to deviate from. The artists that I love, they always are pushing themselves; they’re not saying by consensus, “Hey, what do you guys want?”

ROGERS Who are those artists for you?

BROWNSTEIN For me, it’s people like David Bowie, PJ Harvey, Nick Cave, Patti Smith. When did you first hear Horses?

ROGERS I was living on 12th, between A and B, going to NYU. After I heard it, every day I would walk past St. Mark’s Church on my way to school. And I would always think about Patti Smith bringing an electric guitar to that church, at that poetry gathering, and wanting noise to accompany these words that she was writing.

There’s so many times in college where I’d be having a weird night and be walking home and I would stop at the church to pay reverence to this creative moment.

BROWNSTEIN You’ve been touring a long time.

As ideas start to percolate, where does that energy go? Do they feel urgent?

ROGERS It’s really hard for me to write music on the road, because it’s a really personal process. And it really takes letting my guard down to this level where I can be open. Recently, I reBROWNSTEIN

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alized that when I’m working on a separate creative project before soundcheck, the show is even better because I’m engaged in a different way. Sometimes playing a show feels like I’m only eating one sandwich for a long time. Even though the record came out in January, I’ve been playing the same show for a year and a half.

BROWNSTEIN When I’m working, directing, or writing things that aren’t music, I start to miss music in a way that is very crucial to my relationship to it. There has to be a raw desire for it.

Some people aren’t like that.

ROGERS The most inspiring thing I’ve done the past two years was going to motorcycle school.

BROWNSTEIN Me too! How did it help you?

ROGERS It reminded me of being in school. It reminded me of how important it was to my sense of identity to be around a diverse group of people and being like, “I’m the music girl.”

BROWNSTEIN You mean as an outsider? Like being in opposition to a group of people?

ROGERS I think it just made me [remember] that not everyone does rock music. I’ve found [riding a motorcycle] is really helpful when coming home from tour for moderating adrenaline; I don’t just drop off.

BROWNSTEIN Just be careful. I will say just as a PSA, motorcycle riding is very dangerous.

ROGERS I wear helmets. I’m a wide-open-field, back-roads rider. I wanted to ask you, what makes a great creative partner?

BROWNSTEIN Somebody who you can be yourself around, who you can be vulnerable around.

Someone that just can call you out on your bullshit. Do you see a door opening where you want to collaborate?

ROGERS That’s what I’m trying to find out right now. I had always done most of my music myself. I had some really incredible co-producers on my record, but there was also this sort of speed-dating texture to it, which was really exhausting and sometimes empowering and sometimes belittling. And it was a very strange emotional dance. I really miss my solo process from high school and college at this point.

BROWNSTEIN The process itself, I think, is really important. It’s not just about what happens at the end, what you put out. You don’t get a medal for the hardest studio experience. . . . From the outside, I think there’s something very powerful in your abilities to sort of do it all. Listening to your album, you are very masterful with synthesizers, your sense of rhythm is really great. Everything to me just feels like, “There’s just a world there.”

ROGERS Do you still have dreams?

BROWNSTEIN Even though it’s been a struggle this summer, with our longtime drummer leaving, it actually has reignited for me just the very basic dream of just being onstage and entertaining people. It’s a reminder that this is really what I want to do. My dream right now is just to be on the road and to remind myself and to remind Corin [Tucker], my bandmate, there’s a reason we’re still here and we’re going to keep going. MARISSA MOSS

David Byrne & Tierra Whack A Talking Head and a hip-hop rule-breaker talk about finding their sound while feeling shy

AVID BYRNE IS busy preparing for one of his most ambitious undertakings ever — a Broadway show in which he’ll perform songs from his entire career. But today he ended rehearsals early to ride his bicycle into Brooklyn and catch Tierra Whack at the Afropunk fest. The former Talking Head had suggested a conversation with Whack, who, at 24, has already established herself as one of hip-hop’s most innovative new voices.

Her debut, Whack World, collects 15 tracks, each just one minute long, hopscotching between moods and showing off Whack’s complex and daring rhymes. In an accompanying mini -film, Whack (yes, her real name) plays a different character for each song, I was on the making it clear that, like road last year Byrne, she has a nose for when ‘Whack theatrics. After sending World’ came the Afropunk crowd into out. You listen a frenzy, Whack hops offto that and go, stage and meets one of ‘Oh, OK. Here’s her biggest fans.

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the future.’

BY R N E I was on the road all last year, and when Whack World came — DAV I D B Y R N E out, it was playing all over the tour bus. I thought, “This is amazing.” But more than that, it’s turning the industry upside down: the whole concept, the minute-long songs, the way they’re strung together, and how they went one into the next. You listen and go, “Oh, OK. Here’s the future.”

WHACK Wow. Thank you so much. When I first started, people were telling me, “Oh, you can only have one sound — you can only do one thing. Either you’re a singer or you’re a rapper.”

That drove me crazy, because I would go in the studio every day and just make new things. I felt I had so much to offer. It’s like when they don’t

Photograph by E RIK TANNER

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hire you because you’re overqualified: “Give me the damn job — I need it!”

BYRNE Were there songs that you came up with the visual idea first, before you wrote the music?

WHACK I do the music first. My producer and I make the music together, and then I kick him out and record myself. I recorded about 40 to 50 songs, all one-minute songs. My manager was like, “Wow, you’re not making anything alike.

Nothing sounds the same.”

One thing you two have in common is you both transform into other characters onstage.

BYRNE Not so much now, but years ago when I started, I was very shy offstage. And when I got onstage, I felt this was my opportunity to let people know what I’m about. And as soon as it’s over, it’s like, “Can I go back to my room?”

WHACK I started off really shy too. Even now, before I go on, my anxieties are bad. Then I get onstage and turn into a different person. I get off, I’m just, “Oh, my God, what did I just do?”

David, you were here in New York when hip-hop arrived, and Tierra, you were born in 1995 and were raised with the music. What are your first memories of hip-hop?

BYRNE The earliest things were a lot of break dancers and artists. With a lot of DJs in hip-hop, I thought, “This is like how jazz started.” They were playing these songs that were three minutes long, and the dancers didn’t want to stop.

They had to find a way to stretch the song.

WHACK Oh, wow. In Philly, dudes would be on a corner or at a party just rapping. I had to learn how to freestyle. I knew all the classic beats, and I’d do my own rhymes over them. But I did so much research on everybody that came before me. You can’t just jump in.

BYRNE I want to ask a little bit about your visual background, if you had done theater or video things before.

WHACK I was a vocal major in high school, but I didn’t see myself as an actress or anything. I just didn’t find myself to be theatrical.

BYRNE That is amazing, because people would think you had training.

WHACK Oh, that’s a huge compliment. I’m still trying to find my voice. I’m not just listening to rap or hip-hop or R&B. I’ve got some pop, jazz.

Now, when I’m watching movies, I’m imagining making a song for movies. I want to be all over, across the board.

David, if Tierra were to ask you how to sustain a career in music, what advice would you give her?

BYRNE Oh, I don’t think — WHACK No, please, please.

BYRNE I think you already got it. Keep exploring, keep changing, keep doing what you feel is right. I hit some parts where things went down, where I lost it. Maybe what I was doing was not good. There were definitely periods where I lost the audience. It comes back. It’s hills and valleys, and it comes back again. DAVID BROWNE

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St. Vincent & Kirk Hammett Annie Clark gave up violin so she could learn Metallica songs on the guitar. Now, she asks their lead guitarist about riffs, band politics, and turning rage into music

Photograph by C LAYTON C OTTERELL

MAKEUP AND GROOMING BY VERONICA SJOEN. LOCATION COURTESY OF CAFE LA HAYE, SONOMA, CALIFORNIA

David Byrne & Tierra Whack

LTHOUGH IT MAY not be obvious from her intricate art-rock albums, Annie Clark, a.k.a.

St. Vincent, is a huge Metallica fan. In fact, they inspired her to pick up a guitar in the first place. Clark was a 10-year-old violin player in Dallas when she first heard Metallica, and she immediately tried to play their heavy melodies on her instrument. “I was like, ‘The violin fucking stinks,’ ” she says. Clark switched instruments and even played bass in a Metallica cover band as a teen. So she was psyched to sit down with the band’s lead guitarist, Kirk Hammett, who, it turns out, is a huge fan of Clark’s. When they meet up at Hammett’s favorite Sonoma, California, restaurant the afternoon following Metallica’s massive S&M2 orchestral show, he is full of questions for Clark about St. Vincent’s 2017 album, Masseduction, which he’s been playing since it came out. “I sit in my hotel room and listen to it and just think about the emotional depth of it all, the layering, the production, the guitar sounds, the cool dynamics,” he tells her. “We’re all just a bunch of cavemen, really, trying to find fucking cavemen riffs.

But there’s a sophistication in your guitar playing that I just love.”

Yes, always. I’ll never forget the first time I heard “Purple Haze.” I actually got scared.

CLARK It’s a good sign when music scares you.

As far as guitarists go, I’ve obviously studied you and people like [avant-garde guitar hero] Marc Ribot.

HAMMETT I love Marc Ribot. He told me that he’s a failed heavy-metal guitar player. I also love all the prog stuff: Robert Fripp, Adrian Belew, Steve Howe, Steve Hackett, and Martin Barre.

Adam Jones from Tool hangs out a lot with Robert Fripp, and Fripp showed him this thing to do on guitar that’s a very tedious, slow thing, but it does wonders for my playing.

I have another question for you. Do you feel that your records are proper representations of your abilities? I always feel like I have so much more to say on the album, but I can’t say it.

CLARK Yeah, it always becomes a “kill your darlings” thing. Like, in order for this song to survive, a couple of people have to hop off the boat. You have to sacrifice a couple of ideas in order to make something cohesive. I have a hard time with that.

HAMMETT It’s crazy, because I’m so curious about music in general. I can play a lot of different stuff. I’ll play some jazz, bossa nova, blues, gypsy jazz, fucking Eastern European ballads. I play all that stuff. But no one knows I can play CLARK I got to watch you guys last night, which this stuff. It’s so crazy. was so fucking awesome. I was thinking about CLARK I feel like you bring it in. the elemental puzzle that Metallica is. It just HAMMETT I’m always trying to sneak in jazz seems to me like you get to be the water or air voicings and chords, little techniques here and element within the band. It’s like, there’s this there in Metallica. awesome rigidity, and you get to come CLARK Do you ever get shot down? in with this energy of fluidity that’s so HAMMETT All the time. “That sounds beautiful. It’s tough, menacing, awetoo bluesy.” And I’m like, “Fucking some. But you get to be this soprano. hell, it’s just a slide. All right, whatevHAMMETT Thank you. I try to bring er, tone police.” But you need tone poIt’s one of the an element of improvisation to the lice. Tone is superimportant. reasons why band so we don’t sound the same CLARK Metallica became a part of Metallica has every single fucking night. I don’t like my DNA in the years when I started lisspoken to me rigidity. I came from a generation of tening to music. It’s just imprinted in for so many musicians whose mantra was never to me in a certain way. I feel guilty saying years. I’m a play the song the same way. I only play music I listened to then means more fucking angry certain guitar solos like the album, bethan things I heard later, but it just person too. cause I know that’s what the audience does. That’s when you first discover wants. But then there are solos where that feeling, freedom, and rage.

I don’t know what the fuck I’m going to HAMMETT It’s really amazing that the —A N N I E C L A R K play. I love putting myself into a scary four of us found each other. We mansituation. aged to have certain things in comCLARK You can feel it. It’s thrilling. mon. We had disenfranchised upbringYou know, there would be plenty of bands who ings and a lot of anger that’s just deep-rooted. would have packed it in or gone nostalgic. But But [also] a real kind of determination to turn you guys are so fucking vital, and you’re still that into something musical, exciting, and fun. pushing it forward every time. You’re not taking That’s what we all had in common. It was always any shortcuts, ever. just the four of us. And if everyone else wanted HAMMETT No, no. We’re gluttons for punishto join in on the party, fuck yeah. ment [laughs]. We’ll take the most difficult route CLARK I think that’s one of the reasons why every single time, because the hard road has all Metallica has spoken to me for so many years. these hidden bumps that can create really good I’m a fucking angry person too, and I just conripples. I have a bunch of questions for you. nected to that rage. I grew up in Dallas, in the What guitar players do you listen to? suburbs. I don’t know that I necessarily preCLARK I mean, you always remember the first sented as an outsider, but I always felt like an time you heard Jimi Hendrix. outsider. It’s funny because that kind of rage,

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HAMMETT

you have to figure out how to not walk around screaming, doing terrible things.

HAMMETT You can tap into that rage, and good things come out of that. I was a city kid who moved to the suburbs. The culture shock drove me to be even more introverted, so it was good I had a guitar. I discovered that playing was a great way to calm myself down and relax. I literally sat in my bedroom for three or four years and just played guitar, saying, “Fuck those suburban kids.” I didn’t really mean that, but I was angry because of my environment. I wrote the “Die! Die! Die!” riff for “Creeping Death” [off 1984’s Ride the Lightning] when I was 16 or 17 years old.

I remember playing that in my bathroom, going, “This is different from a lot of the stuff I’ve been listening to. Wow.” You can share your music with the world, but deep down, you know that it’s really just yours.

I entertain that notion a lot because I’m [still] an introvert. Just the other day, we played “Creeping Death” and people were singing, “Die! Die! Die!” Like, “Fuck, I’m still in my bedroom!”

CLARK I’ve had moments of being onstage somewhere like Brazil, where English is not the crowd’s first language, and I’d see a crowd know every single word to these songs. And I can’t believe it. It actually moved me so much that I started crying in the middle of my song “New York.”

HAMMETT Music has the power to make people feel what you want them to feel. Music can be manipulative, enriching, oppressive. It’s amazing. You have all these powers under music, this complete range of emotions. It’s good that people use it for the best reasons, but there have been times when music has been used for not the best reasons. It’s great that the inclination is to do good with it.

CLARK Being in the crowd last night and feeling the energy was funny, because some of the same gestures you see people do depend on the context. If you see a bunch of people banging their fists in Germany in 1943, it’s fucking fascism. But at your show, that is fucking freedom.

HAMMETT It’s cathartic. And the difference could just be beats and an attitude to change all of that. It’s crazy.

Sometimes I don’t know where inspiration comes from. My wife and I have been composing instrumental music to be played at my museum shows while you’re looking at my [horror movie] posters. We were writing a piece and it was going well, but we needed a whole middle part. I was in Amsterdam, staying at a hotel that was a former music conservatory. I was there one night, freaking desperate. I cleared my head. After I meditated, I said, “OK, I know this was a former music school. If there are any spirits, any sort of inspiration or influence, any sort of molecules or atoms that could guide my hand in this moment, that would be great.” For 15 minutes afterward, it just flowed out of me. I was so blown away. I sent my wife the music instantly.

CLARK If you’re a musician, there’s some part of you that has to believe in magic. KORY GROW

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Lenny Kravıtz & H.E.R. Y EARLY MEMORIES are waking up to the smell of breakfast and hearing concert DVDs of you,” H.E.R. tells Lenny Kravitz. The 22-year-old singer (real name Gabi Wilson) is talking about growing up the daughter of a dad in a funk-rock cover band. Kravitz, 55, says he was raised in an artistic household too, though he had a slightly different experience; his dad, a TV producer, and his mom, Roxie Roker, who starred on The Jeffersons for 11 years, took him to Lincoln Center and introduced him to friends like Nina Simone.

“I was always the kid in the place full of adults,” he says. Kravitz loves H.E.R.’s “healing, soulful voice,” which can be heard on her debut album, winner of two Grammys this year. “The songs are really atmospheric and cinematic,” he says.

“They’re like paintings.”

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KRAVITZ The first thing I ever saw of you, before hearing your records, a photo of you standing in front of a mic with a guitar. I was like, “Oh. . . .”

H.E.R. Yeah! I was around Sixties, Seventies, Eighties rock and blues — Jimi Hendrix, Prince, Lenny Kravitz. Everybody that my dad listened to, I was a fan of. I feel like I was born in the wrong era.

KRAVITZ I grew up in the house with Miles Davis, because my mother and [actress] Cice-

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ly Tyson, who’s Miles’ ex-wife, are like sisters. I going to be easier. The fact that you turned that grew up sitting on Duke Ellington’s lap while he down, because something in your heart told played piano, going to the Apollo to see James you . . . I could have rushed to put myself out Brown, going to Madison Square Garden to see there, but that was not the move. the Jackson 5. [My parents] could’ve KRAVITZ With each album, I’m repleft me at home, but they didn’t. So resenting who I am at that moment, or I’m watching my mom rehearse, with what I’ve gone through in the year or Maya Angelou and Nikki Giovanni, Lortwo before. I’m on a two-year tour. Life raine Hansberry. It seeps in. is happening. But I don’t always have I wasn’t H.E.R. I was a kid, and a lot of people time to deal with issues and challengmaking the followed me on YouTube, when peoes and joys and loves. But it stores up. music [record ple were doing covers. I was singing, When the two years is done, I’ll just go executives] but then I would be back on the playback in the studio and get quiet. thought I ground. I got offered a deal at InterH.E.R. What you said about not alshould be scope when I was 11. I didn’t wanna folways having time as an artist to deal making, what low a mold. I wanted to be who I was, with life, that resonated with me so my color skin and I didn’t really know who I was. much. I’m that exact way. should be KRAVITZ You were smart enough to KRAVITZ Where do you [record]? making. know that.

H.E.R. Brooklyn. I work out of this H.E.R. I guess so. I’ve always been studio called Electric Garden in Wilkind of against the grain, always been liamsburg. the loner.

KRAVITZ Zoë [his daughter] lives in — L E N N Y K R AV I T Z KRAVITZ I left home when I was 15.

Williamsburg.

[Record executives] saw my talent, but H.E.R. I saw her one time! This next I wasn’t making the music that they thought I year I’m really working on tapping into myself, should be making, what my color skin should be digging deeper. I haven’t fully sat into what I’m making. So they’d offer me deals and say, “We going to be. I’ve only been touring for two years. know you’re talented, but you need to change KRAVITZ And trust me: Thirty years later, when your music.” you’re still doing it, you’ll still be finding who H.E.R. In anything, there’s always going to be you are. I feel like I’m just getting comfortable pressure to conform, because that looks like it’s with who I am. PAUL THOMPSON

Photograph by M AGDALENA WOSINSKA

H.E.R.: HAIR BY NINA MERCADO, MAKEUP BY MARISSA VOSSEN, STYLING BY WOURI VICE AT THE MONTGOMERY GROUP. KRAVITZ: GROOMING BY SU HAN FOR DEW BEAUTY AGENCY.

The rising R&B singer-guitarist bonds with her hero about having musical parents, Miles Davis, and the importance of not listening to others

N A RECENT L.A. afternoon, Brandi Carlile is talking about the moment when everything changed for her. It was the 2019 Grammys, when she played her ballad “The Joke” live and took home three awards. “I was 39, kind of an outlier underdog character,” says Carlile. That week, her sixth album, By the Way, I Forgive You, went to Number 22. She recently sold out Madison Square Garden. “I went on vacation, and never put down my phone,” she says of the award show’s aftermath. “I was obsessed.”

“I’ve been there,” says Bonnie Raitt, sitting across from her.

In 1989, Raitt released her 10th album, Nick of Time. It sold more than 5 million copies and won the Grammy for Album

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of the Year, making her a superstar at age 40. “You’re in hyperspace after that,” Raitt says. Hard-won success is only the beginning of the similarities between the two artists. In addition to building cult followings, both have used their music as a platform for activism. (Raitt has campaigned for clean energy, Native American rights, and more over the years; Carlile has raised money for kids affected by war and for imprisoned women.) “Bonnie illuminated the path I could have,” says Carlile. Before the interview is over, Carlile has one request: “If you could just teach me one or two slide-guitar licks.” Raitt responds, “It would be my pleasure. I get so much acclaim for doing stuff that just sounds like ‘whooo,’ ” as she slides up an air guitar. Carlile is ecstatic: “You’ve got to be shitting me.”

Photograph by L AUREN D UKOFF

STYLING BY MARYAM MALAKPOUR AT THE ONLY AGENCY. CARLILE’S HAIR AND MAKEUP BY TIFFANY HANSEROTH. RAITT’S MAKEUP BY BRUCE GRAYSON AT MCH GLOBAL.

Bonnie Raitt & Brandi Carlile

“She illuminated the path I could have,” Carlile says as she sits down with her hero for the first time.

“She taught me I could lead and not apologize.”

Brandi, how did you first hear Bonnie’s music?

She had no interest in a regular life. That’s what CARLILE I remember singing “Something to I wanted to do. And I ended up getting to do it!

Talk About” all the time as a kid. One of my most CARLILE You own the saloon, that’s for sure. significant times was when I moved out of the RAITT Maybe I appear tough, but a lot of it is house and in with my first girlfriend, Jessica. I bravado. I just wanted my brothers and my dad was 19 and we were huge fans, and we wanted to to pay attention to me. I could tell women were go listen to you play and we couldn’t get a ticket, getting the second shot at society. I watched a lot so we sat outside the fence and listened to your of marriages of my classmates break up, and the voice reverberate around Washington state. It wife was left with nothing. I just thought, “I’m alwas a big moment, a beautiful memory. ways going to pay my own way.”

RAITT That is so sweet. I would have let you in The toughness was [also] having to be tough in if I had known. I’m gonna be a mess in this intera man’s business. When you’re starting out in the view, because I’ve never been with anyone that studio with a bunch of guys, and the way they’re talked about me before. I haven’t ever heard anyplaying is too busy or too fruity, you know one say they were influenced by me. they’re thinking, “What right do you have to tell CARLILE We get together and talk about you all me what to play?” It becomes a challenge how to the time. Do you ever hear yourself in my voice? say it in a way that doesn’t push the mom button, RAITT Well, I hear the attitude. I wish I could the know-it-all button, or the diva button. have the range and sing like you do. But if I CARLILE That’s the best way I’ve heard that excould, I would sing like you. plained. Because they have those buttons. KnowCARLILE The song that speaks to me the most is ing how to avoid them is the key to kind of climb“I Can’t Make You Love Me.” The empathy is just ing the ladder in those circles. It’s a sad thing. As unbelievable. I feel really vulnerable when I sing women, the scariest place is to pull that chair up it, in a way I’m not entirely comfortable with. next to the console. People are ready to laugh.

RAITT Is it because you’ve been through that RAITT Oh, I would just level them with somesituation yourself? thing. . . . I’ve known we were connected for a CARLILE I think it’s because I am not strong while. From your lyrics, your incredible musicalenough to go through that situation myself. So ity, your foundation. I really admire you for that. when I put myself there, I almost can’t handle CARLILE I still have my “No Nukes” guitar pick I the thought of being that person. picked off the ground at one of your shows. I reRAITT I’m so grateful for the writers that sent member my dad said, “What the hell, no nucleme that song. Every night, I’m reminded of being ar power?” It was a radical statement. left when someone was not in love with me anyRAITT I was just basing it on role models I had, more. I think it was even worse to have like Joan Baez. They were all using to be the one to break somebody’s their music to raise money for a great heart because you don’t love them cause. The marrying of the arts and anymore. I’ve been through both sides political action, like the Staple Singof that. I always dedicate it to someone ers, seemed like a part of what we do.

I’m going to going through a heartache. I’ve gotten CARLILE There’s been a great awakbe a mess in letters from people saying, “I’ve never ening. I feel like we flipped on a black this interview, seen my husband cry except when you light: “There’s still racism, war aspibecause I’ve sing that song.” Now I’m gonna cry. rations, hatred for displaced people.” never heard Bonnie, you dropped out of Harvard I love Obama, but we were lulled to anyone say to tour. What did your parents say? sleep in those eight years. You weren’t. they were RAITT They said, “You’re on your Now, you don’t get to be in the public influenced own.” It was just a sideline until I went eye without attaching activism to your by me. back to college. I was singing blues career. When you did, it was a risk. stuff, singer-songwriter stuff, James RAITT This current younger generTaylor stuff. I was cheap. I could carry ation in particular have really been my own guitar. I wasn’t threatening to amazing and galvanizing. As distress—BON N I E R A I T T the male acts. I said, “This is great. I ing as it’s been since the last election, can open for John Hammond, Muddy the seeds of change have been planted.

Waters, and go back to college.” I was CARLILE Bernie Sanders’ entire dejust at the right place at the right time, then I got mographic is college-age kids and younger. How offered a deal. is that even happening? That has to be someCARLILE You hear Bonnie Raitt stories, and thing on a cosmic level if I’ve ever seen one. I men tell them, about how you’re tougher than sang for him recently. I got some shit about it. anyone else. You hear about this kind of rugI said that he doesn’t have much charisma. I ged, road-weary woman that’s just thrown down meant it as a compliment, because he was not the gauntlet and outworked the men. I’ve heard nice to me, at least in the way we’re used to peothose stories for years. ple being nice to us because of what we do. He RAITT Oh, my God. I’m glad those guys told didn’t think there was anything more special those stories, and not some other ones. I reabout me than any of his volunteers handing out member watching Amanda Blake in Gunsmoke. fliers. I appreciated that, because we need some She owned the saloon and didn’t get married. fairness in this country.

He’s not messing around. I’ve never seen anyone more energetic for so many years.

If I had any doubt about what my older years are gonna be like, he’s the guy. . . .

CARLILE I read a piece today that said every big mistake the United States has made for the last 30 years can be coordinated alongside a video of Bernie Sanders trying to stop it.

RAITT That’s great.

Bonnie, what excites you about today’s music?

RAITT There’s never been more women that do country or country-tinged music in my life.

There is an amazing list of women out there that are just killing it.

Brandi, this year you staged Girls Just Wanna Weekend, an all-female fest. What did you learn?

CARLILE I learned a lot. I am a big fan of the Instagram called Book More Women. Did you know about that?

RAITT No. CARLILE They take a festival poster and take all the men’s names off it, and just leave the women, so the next page is just, like, blank.

I always just thought, “The fucking promoters, they’re not booking women.” The truth is, there aren’t enough women being signed. There aren’t enough on the executive level. And the pay gap affects the industry in such a way men have more money to consume music, so they’re targeted as a demographic. That’s the big secret. So when I tried to find women to do it with me, I realized it’s not just the promoters.

RAITT I didn’t know that. Everything is pocket-driven. There has to be a reason they’re gonna put more money into promoting more women. I saw Reese Witherspoon started her own production company [focused on promoting women].

We gotta do the same thing with Live Nation.

What’s next for the two of you?

CARLILE We’re going over to Joni Mitchell’s house! It’s gonna be fun, because she’s really struggled since the aneurysm. She swore off music. But we’ve been doing these get-togethers at her house. We drink wine, she tells stories, then we play music. I played my song “Cannonball,” and I was shaking. I brought Hozier and he played a song — and Chaka Khan walks in.

She’s cracking everybody up, stealing people’s wine. Joni got real loose when that happened.

She thought it was funny someone wasn’t nervous. We sang a CSN song, and Chaka threw a fourth part on top.

Then Herbie Hancock walks in. I think it was Joni’s cruel surprise, to make these kids squirm.

He sits at the piano, and he’s hovering on this chord; nobody knew what it was. But Joni did.

And from the middle of the room, you hear “Summertime and the living is easy,” and it’s Joni fucking Mitchell, singing for the first time since her aneurysm.

RAITT I don’t get to see her very much. We had some classic hangs at my house in the Seventies, one time with Jackson [Browne] and Graham [Nash]. It’s just a thrill for me to be back in a musical setting with her. PATRICK DOYLE RAITT

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M U S I C I A N S

Ringo Starr & Dave Grohl Two drummers-turned-frontmen go deep on their craft, losing John Lennon and Kurt Cobain, and finding life after their legendary bands

Photograph by YANA YATSUK

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O N

INGO STARR is about to get into a bathtub with Dave Grohl, and he seems a little skeptical. “Is this some sort of bullshit?” the former Beatle says. But he steps in anyway. Soon they’re chatting comfortably; as Grohl discusses the Foo Fighters’ recent tour, Starr hands him a rubber ducky, and instructs him to make a heart symbol with his hands to complement his own omnipresent peace sign.

Grohl and Starr have known each other since 2013, when Grohl spoke at a release party for Starr’s first photography book. Grohl later enlisted Starr to shoot band photos of the Foo Fighters for their 2014 album, Sonic Highways. Today, they’re close enough that Starr gives Grohl shit about his time moonlighting as the Foos’ photographer. “I didn’t feel you ever liked ’em,” Starr teases Grohl of the pictures he took. “What are you talking about?” Grohl replies. “We used ’em on the record!” “I wanted more praise and love,” Starr says.

Grohl learned to play guitar, his first instrument, by working through a Beatles chord book.

Since then, his career arc has mirrored Starr’s in many ways. Both artists rose to fame as drummers in generation-defining bands, and went on to reinvent themselves as songwriter-bandleaders — Starr just released his 20th solo album, What’s My Name, and wrapped a tour with his All Starr Band, now in its 30th year. They’ve both stepped into other artistic areas outside music — Grohl as a director, Starr as an actor and photographer (his latest book, Another Day in the Life, just came out). Along the way, both artists weathered the loss of a friend and bandmate to tragedy.

As they talk over the next hour, their conversation is punctuated by constant table-drumming from both. “You see,” Starr says when it’s all over, “two drummers, they’ll blah their asses off forever.”

R

Can you explain skiffle to me?

STARR Skiffle is: One chord’s enough. Lonnie Donegan in England had several big hits, but actually it was from house music down South in America. If you paid a dollar, you could go into the party and that would help buy the booze and pay the rent. And it moved to England — how weird!

GROHL Was there a specific shuffle to it?

STARR Well, it still had sort of a swingy feel.

[Drums on table and sings Donegan’s cover of the American folk song “Rock Island Line,” which set off the skiffle craze in 1956.]

In Liverpool, because we were all teenagers then, I did anything not to go in the army. So to save myself from that, I ended up on the railways. Then I got a job in this factory. My first band was in the factory with the guy who lived next door to me: Eddie Clayton, who was just a really cool guitar player. And I always wanted to be a drummer since I was 13, and my friend Roy [Trafford] made a tea-chest bass — a tea chest GROHL

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with a stick and a string — and that’s what skiffle was.

GROHL But you had no formal training?

STARR No. And we would play in the basement for the men at lunchtime. And if you’ve ever played a factory, that’ll make you grow up. It’s “Get off!” There’s no “Very nice, boys.”

Yeah, that’s how I started, and then we introduced a few more people to the band . . . and then I moved to Rory [Storm and the Hurricanes], which was out-and-out rock. And that was a great time for me, and it was a big band in Liverpool. In 1960, we got a job for three months in a holiday camp. And I left the factory, and the whole family had a meeting to try and convince me that “drums are OK as a hobby, son. . . . ” GROHL Oh, I had one of those too [laughs].

With the bands before the Beatles, were you singing any songs?

STARR Yeah, with Rory. I’d do “Watch Your Step,” and I’d do “Alley Oop.” In Germany, all the Germans would always [say], “Spielen ‘Alley Oop.’ ” You know, substances came into play in Germany — that was good. A lot of alcohol, of course, but speed came in, and that kept us up all night.

GROHL I bet. How many sets did you have to play?

STARR At the beginning, three. This guy [Bruno] Koschmider, who booked all the bands, had two clubs: the Bambi Kino and the Kaiserkeller, where the Beatles were. Then he closed the Kaiserkeller and put the Beatles in our club, so we were the two bands in this club, who at the weekend played 12 hours between

I think ‘Yellow Submarine’ has defined everyone in the world’s life at some point.

I’m sitting there singing it with my five-year-old, I think for the same reason, even though we’re 45 years apart.

—DAV E G RO H L

us, trying to top each other. It was rock & roll gone mad.

GROHL I ask [about you singing] because your band, correct me if I’m wrong, seems like the first band to popularize the idea of the drummer singing one of the band’s songs. Had that really happened before?

STARR Well, no. I was doing it before, so it wasn’t strange when I started doing it in the Beatles. The first two songs I recorded with the Beatles were Carl Perkins songs, ’cause I liked that easy rock, and then we found country songs, stuff like that. And then they’d give me a song. I started writing songs. And it’s interesting, I wrote better after we broke up.

GROHL Well, I can imagine: If you’re in a band where everyone’s an amazing songwriter . . .

STARR It was hard. “I’ve got this.” [Sings “I’d like to be . . .,” from “Octopus’ Garden,” and laughs.]

GROHL Well, that’s the famous old joke: “What’s the last thing the drummer said before he got kicked out?” “Hey, guys, I got a song I think we should play.”

STARR Well, yeah, and I used to write songs and I’d present it to the boys, and they would be rolling on the floor laughing, because I’d just rewritten another song and hadn’t noticed it!

GROHL Well, when we went to that 50th anniversary of The Ed Sullivan Show that you played [in 2014], when you stepped out to do “Yellow Submarine,” I honestly think that was the biggest reaction of the entire night.

STARR Yeah, yeah.

GROHL I really think that that song has defined everyone in the world’s life at some point, or just become a moment. I’m sitting there singing the song with my five-year-old, and we’re singing it I think for the same reason, even though we’re 45 years apart.

STARR I think I got to the kids early with that song, because around about two, two and a half, they all start: [Sings] “Yellow submarine.” And all of my grandchildren have stood behind the chair I’m sitting in, at one moment in their lives, and they’re going, “We all live in a yellow submarine.” Like, “We know who you are, Granddad” [laughs].

GROHL This is a weird question, but what do you remember about recording the middle bit where everyone’s in the engine room of a submarine?

STARR We were just in Abbey Road for the [remastered] Abbey Road album release. If you look where the stairs come down, [that’s] where we used to hang out and huddle with each other.

There’s a big door, and I went and opened that door and just shouted from there. John was saying, “What we do, Captain?” or something. We were just all shouting and put it on. So that’s [why] it felt echoey. We did what we did!

I think I was telling you that story with the Abbey Road album cover. We sat for days talking about it: “Let’s go up Everest and do the cover!”

“Let’s go to a volcano in Hawaii!” “Egypt, the Pyramids, yeah!” . . . “Ah, fuck it, [Cont. on 93]

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Music

MIRANDA’S ROCK & ROLL REVOLUTION The country queen cranks up the guitars and the ambition on a brilliant album

By JON DOL AN

Miranda Lambert Wildcard RCA NASHVILLE

$

D

ESPITE YEARS of admirable effort, Nashville’s attempts to rock out can still tend to come off pretty hammy.

Then you get something like “Mess With My Head,” a searing standout from Miranda Lambert’s seventh LP, Wildcard. Over sleek drums and noir guitars, the country queen unspools steamy psychodrama, singing about her mind as a luxury hotel suite open for 2 a.m. room service: “I know why I gave the keys to you,” she intones, before a chorus that sounds like Sheryl Crow under the influence of Hole’s Celebrity Skin. It’s the sound of a freewheeling star at the top of her game, reimagining rock history in her own platinum image.

ILLUSTRATION BY

Jody Hewgill

Reviews Music

Wildcard is full of moments like that. It sharpens the atmospherically gritty feel of Lambert’s last album, 2016’s The Weight of These Wings, a double LP recorded after she divorced Blake Shelton that had more in common with self-searching Seventies opuses like George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass than with anything on country radio. Along with longtime A-list songwriting collaborators like Natalie Hemby, Liz Rose, and Lori McKenna, she brought on producer and guitarist Jay Joyce, who has helmed records by Cage the Elephant and Eric Church.

The rock touches are smart and perfectly in keeping with Lambert’s ability to bridge high-end glammy and front-porch real: “Way Too Pretty for Prison” cleverly opens with a noisy guitar scrum that evokes Thin Lizzy’s “Jailbreak,” then turns into Lambert and guest Maren Morris’ hilarious spin on the classic feminist outlaw murder fantasy: She’s got an asshole husband, but rather than deep-six the guy themselves, they hire out the job because they might end up in jail, where the “lunch trays don’t come with chardonnay.” Elsewhere, the speedy Seventies-tinged “Locomotive” signifies its rawness when Lambert sings, “I ain’t no Napa Valley/New York City seems OK.” On the softer side there’s “Track Record,” a gorgeous ode to her errant romantic ways that recalls the War on Drugs’ shimmering indie-rock guitar pastorals.

Lambert’s Texas honky-tonk brio and charisma-bomb sense of humor goose every song, especially when the musical fruit hangs a little lower — like on “White Trash,” a hick-hop ode to gated-community crashing (“Dog hair on the Restoration Hardware/Who says you can’t have nice things”), and the country-rock invite “Pretty Bitchin’,” which rhymes with “help yourself to the Tito’s in the pretty kitchen.”

Moments like these remind us that adventurous music doesn’t need to be as self-serious as many of today’s pop stars seem to think. But that in no way means Lambert is soft-peddling her ambition; see “Holy Water,” a gospel-tinged country-blues anthem about religious and political corruption as a literal stain on the land: “You can’t skip a stone where the river’s all but gone,” she warns.

Her expansive vision of down-home America makes it a place worth fighting for.

FKA TWIGS GRABS THE FUTURE

The avant-R&B artist is an eccentric visionary on her masterful second album By W ILL HER MES

A

N AFRO-FUTURIST Kate Bush with some visionary avant-pop ideas, FKA Twigs went from music-video backing dancer to among the most electric of electronic pop acts five years ago with her debut, LP1. On Magdalene, her long-brewing follow-up, she goes next-level,

FKA Twigs Magdalene Young Turks

4

making music that resists being pinned by genre — or even as merely music, so essential is choreography, filmmaking, and photography to what she does. Few current artists (Beyoncé and Björk come to mind) have made the visual feel so integral to their sound.

That’s certainly not to say Magdalene comes up short musically; the sound’s rich enough to conjure kaleidoscopic dreams with closed eyes. The multitracked vocals of “Thousand Eyes” begin like medieval music in a song about separation that, rather than leave the singer alone,

BREAKING

Taking Vintage Soul Into the Mystic MICHAEL KIWANUKA’S mix of vintage soul and psychedelia has made him a successful

Kiwanuka

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indie artist in his native U.K. But most Americans may only know his music via “Cold Little Heart,” the opening theme to HBO’s Big Little Lies. That should change with the 32-year-old’s third LP, Kiwanuka, his best offering yet and second with producer Danger Mouse, who adds exploratory flourishes to a sound that can evoke the adventurous Seventies soul of Stevie Wonder as well as the down-to-earth songcraft of Bill Withers — from the scuzzy, symphonic “You Ain’t the Problem” to the pleading polemic “Hero.” JONATHAN BERNSTEIN

+++++ Classic | ++++ Excellent | +++ Good | ++ Fair | + Poor

leaves her in a frightening crowd of people, or personas. “Home With You” is a whispered piano-ballad rap with a shout-out to the album’s biblical namesake and the sneered observation that you’ve “never seen a hero like me in a sci-fi.”

On “Sad Day,” she spins an earworm melody with her breathy avian soprano and high-tea phrasing over murky beat fractals that burst and recede. The psychedelic R&B of “Holy Terrain,” featuring Future, is a creative pile-on also shaped by Jack Antonoff, Skrillex, Sounwave, and Le Mystére des Voix Bulgares, the Bulgarian choral group, who get looped into a haunting sort of trap pygmy chant.

It takes nothing from the originality of Twigs’ work that you can hear echoes of Kate Bush, as well as lyrical nods to “Running Up That Hill” and “This Woman’s Work,” gestures that by now should be equated to architects referencing gothic doorways or rappers paraphrasing Biggie — an art form’s foundational bedrock. Ditto for the whiff of Radiohead’s “Pyramid Song” in the meditative opening piano chords of “Fallen Alien,” which shifts in and out of a cacophony of grime beats, a seesaw of EDM, and distressed chamber music.

Twigs’ lyrics conjure struggles, which one imagines she’s had plenty of recently, between major surgery and a public breakup with Robert Pattinson. But like her U.K. peer Charli XCX, she has the support of a smartly curated, collaborative team: Nicolas Jaar, Benny Blanco, and Oneohtrix Point Never, among others. But the music runs counter to mainstream pop groupthink; Magdalene sounds like the eccentric product of a single pair of hands — like the ones you see in the pole-dancing-themed video for “Cellophane,” hoisting herself up, always toward new discovery.

RATINGS ARE SUPERVISED BY THE EDITORS OF ROLLING STONE.

FROM TOP: MATTHEW STONE; OLIVIA ROSE

MIR ANDA L AMBERT

REISSUES

Angel Olsen

All Mirrors Jagjaguwar

DaBaby

KIRK Interscope

Wilco

Ode to Joy dBpm

Danny Brown

U Know What I’m Sayin?

Warp

Kim Gordon

No Home Record Matador

ANGEL RISING Olsen’s voice can sweep from shivering whisper to piercing wail, and the orchestral strings and goth-noir drama make this the spellbinding singersongwriter’s biggest, boldest record yet.

$

BIG BABY One of the year’s most compelling breakout stars has his coming-out party. He’s a Southern alpha-dog formalist who builds risqué verses out of clever lyrics, precise flows, and ironclad bravado.

4

CHICAGO FIRE Leave it to Wilco to open a set called Ode to Joy with a noise-scarred lament about stasis. But the clouds soon part to reveal some of Jeff Tweedy’s prettiest, most grateful songs yet.

4

DA N T H E M A N The Detroit rapper remains vividly unhinged. Preposterous sex bars and unflinching life stories propel his fifth album forward amid Q-Tip and Paul White’s psychedelic beats.

4

WHEN BOB MET JOHNNY A new ‘Bootleg Series’ edition goes deep into Dylan’s Nashville sessions

I

N 1967, at the height of psychedelia, Bob Dylan decamped to Nashville and stripped down for the roots-rock landmark John Wesley Harding and 1969’s fullon-country Nashville Skyline.

Outtakes from those albums comprise disc one of the 15th Bootleg Series set, including a somber “All Along the Watchtower” and a Spartan “Lay, Lady, Lay.” The rest is two

Bob Dylan (feat. Johnny Cash)

SONIC TRUTH Gordon’s solo debut is the

most accessible of her post-Sonic Youth projects: The rockers evoke classic S.Y., the soundscapes are like slow-motion earthquakes, and the lyrics are unguarded.

#

Travelin’ Thru, 1967-1969: The Bootleg Series Vol. 15

FROM TOP, LEFT TO RIGHT: SCOTT DUDELSON/WIREIMAGE; AL WAGNER/INVISION/AP IMAGES/SHUTTERSTOCK; MARK HORTON/GETTY IMAGES; EBET ROBERTS/REDFERNS/GETTY IMAGES; ERIKA GOLDRING/WIREIMAGE; AURORA ROSE/PATRICK MCMULLAN/GETTY IMAGES

$ Big Thief

Two Hands 4AD

King Princess

Cheap Queen Zelig/Columbia

Jim James

The Order of Nature Decca Gold

Hootie and the Blowfish

Imperfect Circle Capitol Nashville

Third Eye Blind

Screamer Mega Collider

FOLK-ROCK FURY Just five months after releasing its meditative U.F.O.F., the indie-folk crew delivers this hook-laden LP, showing off its pop chops on thrilling songs like “Not” and “Forgotten Eyes.”

#

ROYALLY GOOD A queer pop hero in the making, Mikaela Straus fills her full-length debut with sharp, splashy love songs that recall the intricate glossiness of Lady Gaga and the searing emotion of Lorde.

#

STRING THEORY This song cycle, written in cahoots with hotshot conductor-composer Teddy Abrams and recorded live, is part “What’s Going On,” part “Nature Boy.” It doesn’t rock much. But it soars.

3

HOOTIE’S BACK Their first LP in 14 years aims for roots-rock gold, with help from Ed Sheeran and Chris Stapleton. The easy-swaying “We Are One” is sweet; much of the rest is kind of one-dimensional.

3

NOT CHARMED Frontman Stephan Jenkins sings about watching Cameron Diaz movies and being called “dude” in songs that suggest he can’t quite remember what his semi-charmed life sounded like.

2

discs of sessions from that period with Johnny Cash, as well as appearances together on Cash’s TV variety show.

Dylan and Cash laugh and trade verses, eventually falling in together, especially on a warm run-through of “I Walk the Line.” The most curious offerings are a couple of Cash covers from around Dylan’s gloppy 1970 LP, Self Portrait: an electric honky-tonk take on “Ring of Fire” that is admirably funky yet weirdly excessive, and a thumping “Folsom Prison Blues” that features one of Dylan’s best country vocals. When he sings “I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die,” he hits a perfect mix of glibness and shame. KORY GROW

Gordon

CONTRIBUTORS: JON DOLAN, KORY GROW, WILL HERMES, DANNY SCHWARTZ

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TV

El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie

JESSE PINKMAN’S LAST STAND

The other antihero of ‘Breaking Bad’ gets his own spinoff movie — and the memorable farewell he deserves

ALAN SEPINWALL

W

RITING THE adventures of Walter White and Jesse Pinkman required at least as much improvisation as the duo’s criminal escapades entailed. Ultimately, neither the drug dealers nor their storytellers were particularly good at sticking to plans. Much of what made Breaking Bad one of TV’s greatest series ever was how both the show and its main characters backed themselves into corners, then found a way out — usually involving a very big explosion.

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The most important deviation from the blueprint came very early. Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan had assumed that Jesse would introduce Walt to the drug world, then get killed.

Instead, Aaron Paul proved so utterly compelling in the role that Jesse not only survived, but in time was treated as Walt’s narrative equal. When the series ended, Walt was lying dead on a meth-lab floor, while it was Jesse who was alive and . . . not exactly well, after months of imprisonment and torture, but at least free and on the road to somewhere else.

Now, Jesse has outlived his mentor within both the Breaking Bad narrative and the larger Heisenberg-verse that Gilligan and friends have built in the years since Walt breathed his last. (See also the surprisingly great prequel series Better Call Saul.) El Camino: A Breaking Bad

Movie, written and directed

by Gilligan, provides the closure that Jesse didn’t quite get at the end of the original show — when Walt reasserted dominance over the plot — while cementing that Paul is more than capable of carrying a story in this world when Bryan Cranston is absent.

In picking up immediately where the series left Jesse — driving away from the wrecked Nazi compound in the titular vehicle — and going step by painful goddamn step through the many problems Jesse has to solve in his attempt to get out of Albuquerque alive, Gilligan has returned to one of the show’s core tenets.

Among the best parts of Breaking Plemons Bad was its menaces micro-focus on as Todd.

+++++ Classic | ++++ Excellent | +++ Good | ++ Fair | + Poor

Netflix

NETWORK AIR DATE

Streaming now

STARRING

Aaron Paul Jesse Plemons Bryan Cranston

4

the nightmarish logistics of criminal enterprise that most stories gloss over: disposing of dead bodies, establishing territory and distribution networks, even something as basic as how to load and use a revolver. The Jesse we follow in El Camino is a more seasoned lawbreaker than when he was going by Cap’n Cook and putting chili powder in his meth, but he’s also not the genius Walt was.

BEN ROTHSTEIN/NETFLIX, 2

Paul and Banks have a heart-toheart.

Many of the pleasures of the film involve him stumbling into one trap after another and having only his own tenacity as a useful weapon.

(This includes several scenes where he actually has a gun, amusingly enough.)

Gilligan also uses Jesse’s scramble to freedom as something of a corrective to Breaking Bad’s Walt-centric endgame. (Beware: Spoilers follow.) The film is peppered with flashbacks featuring important figures from Jesse’s life who didn’t survive the series: Jesse and Mike ( Jonathan Banks) contemplating the retirement we know Mike didn’t get to enjoy; Jesse and his girlfriend Jane (Krysten Ritter) taking a drive together; and Walt trying to offer Jesse some paternal advice. All the cameos are striking — the shot of Paul and Cranston walking side by side in their Season Two finery is spine-tingling in its recollection of a more innocent time in both characters’ lives — yet the most important resurrected character isn’t Walt, but Jesse Plemons as Todd, the white supremacist sociopath who kept Jesse as a slave in the series’ final episodes. In depicting a macabre weekend the two spend together (getting rid of another body, of course), those flashbacks retroactively add more weight to Jesse’s prolonged captivity, while allowing Plemons to steal large swaths of the movie with his portrayal of Todd’s chilling blandness.

(Good luck hearing Dr. Hook’s “Sharing the Night Together” ever again without cringing.)

Gilligan has said that El Camino began life as a short film he wanted to craft for the show’s 10th anniversary. This longer final version still feels more like a gift to the fans than something strictly necessary to make the experience of Breaking Bad feel complete. But when you’ve got Vince Gilligan operating near the peak of his powers, it makes for one hell of an entertaining gift.

WATCH LIST What to stream, what to skip this month

Kinnaman leads the space race.

APPLE TV+ LIFTS OFF

On November 1st, Apple enters the streaming wars, launching with a handful of high-profile, talent-packed shows. Here are three to check out

SPACE FORCE For All Mankind

FROM TOP: JUSTIN LUBIN/APPLE; APPLE; HILARY B GAYLE/APPLE

# Battlestar Galactica showrunner Ronald D. Moore delves into alternate-history science fiction, traveling back to 1969 for a world where the Soviets beat America to the moon landing by a few weeks. In our reality, Neil Armstrong’s one small step effectively ended the space race; here, the existence of a “Red Moon” only escalates it. For All Mankind is the most consistent and satisfying of Apple’s new shows so far, but its alternate history doesn’t feel quite alternate enough in the early going.

Leading men Joel Kinnaman and Michael Dorman play fairly generic fictional Apollo astronauts.

It’s not until the third episode, when NASA recruits a group of female astronauts in a push to put an American woman in space, that this parallel reality, and the show, truly break orbit.

CHAPTER AND VERSE Dickinson

3 “My God! You will ruin the good name of Dickinson!” Emily’s father warns her. It’s hard to tell whether this comedy about the iconic poet (Hailee Steinfeld)

is just as determined to ruin her good name, or if the goal is simply to place her in a more modern context. Whatever its mission, this show is a lot, y’all.

Set in 19th-century Massachusetts, it features a contemporary soundtrack (Billie Eilish, Lizzo, A$AP Rocky) — plus Wiz Khalifa Steinfeld as the teen poet

playing Emily’s one true love, Death himself — and has its heroine speak like a rebellious teenager of today: “This is such bullshit!” she exclaims when told she has to do chores because she’s a girl. If the idea was to show how Dickinson was a woman born in the wrong era, it doesn’t work, because all of the young characters talk this way (her brother boasts that his new house will be “so pimp”), and even the adults (Toby Huss and Jane Krakowski play her parents) slip in and out of period vernacular. But even if it’s a mess that doesn’t much capture the spirit of the poet’s life and work, at least it’s an energetic mess, with a charismatic lead performance from Steinfeld.

WAKE-UP CALL

The Morning Show

@ A morning-TV anchor (Jennifer Aniston) is stunned when her longtime co-anchor (Steve Carell) is fired for alleged sexual misconduct, then scrambles as a slick network exec (Billy Crudup) fixates on a regional news reporter (Reese Witherspoon) who’s the subject of a viral video. It’s a star-studded study in contradictions — a shiny new streaming drama about a creaky old broadcast-television format — and feels like something NBC could have aired 15 years ago: an Aaron Sorkin show without the snappy dialogue or soaring

Witherspoon and Aniston emotions. Aniston is terrific in her return to TV, Witherspoon is strong playing against type, and Crudup is fun as an agent of chaos. But even with the #MeToo talk, the whole thing feels stale, voiceless, and sluggishly paced.

A lot of talent onscreen in service of sleepy material. A.S.

Books THE REAL-LIFE ROCKET MAN

Elton John’s long-awaited memoir ‘Me’ is an unsparingly honest look at the man behind the glittery hits By ANDY GR EENE it. Once, he hit me because I was supposedly taking my school blazer off incorrectly.”

Elton found salvation in rock & roll, though only after years of struggling on the British pub circuit and backing American R&B greats like Patti LaBelle and Lee Dorsey. Fame came very quickly after “Your Song” exploded across the world in 1970, but Elton is much more interested in writing about all the wild adventures he had in the Seventies rather than the incredible music he created. Landmark albums like Tumbleweed Connection, Madman Across the Water and Honky Château breeze by in a few scant paragraphs, while his first encounter with cocaine gets dissected at length. “The first line I snorted made me retch,” he writes.

“I went out to the toilet and threw up. And then I immediately went back . . . and asked for another line.”

The moment marks the start of an extremely dark period of about 16 years in his life, when Elton battled cocaine addiction, alcoholism, bulimia, bouts of uncontrollable anger, and extravagant shopping expeditions. The latter

Debbie Harry’s Big Punk Adventure DEBBIE HARRY always viewed “Blondie” as a character she played, and in her memoir, Face It, she pulls back the curtain to show her life behind the image.

Adopted when she was six months old, Harry grew up questioning who she was, eventually drifting from her hippie-ish first band, the Wind in the Willows, to become CBGB’s greatest pop success story. Along the way she takes acid with Timothy Leary; watches Patti Smith try to steal her

Face It Debbie Harry DEY STREET BOOKS

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drummer; brings heroin to her boyfriend, Blondie guitarist Chris Stein, in the hospital; vividly describes David Bowie’s penis; and quizzically dates magician Penn Jillette, among many other adventures. She writes funnily and conversationally, as if to suggest that there’s always more to the story than she’s sharing.

As she notes toward the end of the book, “I have lived one fuck of an interesting life and I plan to go on having one.” KORY GROW

Elton at the height of his Seventies stardom

Portait of a Chili as a Young Punk

Acid for the Children Flea GRAND CENTRAL PUBLISHING

#

THE RED HOT Chili Peppers’ bassist is the sort of rock star who begins his memoir weeping at musical beauty in an Ethiopian church, surrendering “to the divine and cosmic rhythm,” and offering the summary observation that “being famous don’t mean shit.” Disingenuous? Hell, you’ll want to hug him before you’re 10 pages in.

Flea’s got a compelling, self-interrogating writer’s voice and a big heart, as he describes an upbringing

as the semi-neglected son of an Australian customs official navigating boho 1960s/1970s America, discovering be-bop, drugs, and, finally, the L.A. punk scene, where he launched a band with high school bro Anthony Kiedis — and that’s where the book ends.

Like Patti Smith’s Just Kids or Bob Dylan’s Chronicles, the pre-fame narratives focus on the human, and like those memoirs, it’s part of an ongoing project worth following. WILL HERMES

ANDRE CSILLAG/SHUTTERSTOCK

E

ARLIER THIS year, the Elton John biopic, Rocketman, hit multiplexes. The movie took huge liberties telling Elton’s story: showing him performing songs years or even decades before they were written; taking his stage name from John Lennon instead of his mentor, little-known English rocker Long John Baldry; levitating high above the piano while belting out “Crocodile Rock”; and even singing “Rocket Man” at the bottom of a swimming pool while his childhood self played the piano Me dressed as an astronaut.

Elton John It was a fantasy musical that went for the emotional HENRY HOLT & CO. truth, making this the per4 fect time to get the actual story in his long-awaited autobiography, Me. This is the warts-and-all reality, starting with a painful childhood marked by his mother’s extreme emotional neglect and his father’s long absences and bouts of intense rage over seemingly anything young Elton did. “I [got] in trouble if I ate celery in what was deemed The Wrong Way,” Elton writes. “The Right Way to eat celery, in the unlikely event that you’re interested, was apparently not to make too loud of a crunching sound when you bit into

two vices remain problems to this day, but he kicked the other ones in 1991 after checking into a no-frills rehab facility in the suburbs of Chicago, where he was forced to clean toilets, do his own laundry, and even share his bedroom with another patient. “[That] didn’t go down very well until I saw my roommate,” Elton writes. “His name was Greg, he was gay and very attractive. At least there was something nice to look at around here.”

The final third of the book is devoted to his post-rehab life, including a sad chapter about the back-to-back losses of his good friends Gianni Versace and Princess Diana, in which he reveals that the huge success of “Candle in the Wind 1997” made him very uncomfortable, especially when it stayed at the top of the charts for 14 weeks. “It felt as if people were somehow wallowing in her death,” he writes, “like the mourning for her had got out of hand and they were refusing to move on. It seemed unhealthy to me — morbid and unnatural. I really don’t think it was what Diana would have wanted.”

Near the end of the book, Elton reveals that he recently survived a frightening bout with prostate cancer right before the start of his ongoing farewell tour. He managed to keep the entire thing secret, even though treatment for the disease briefly left him unable to control his bladder; in one vivid passage, he finds himself urinating into a diaper while singing “Rocket Man” on a Las Vegas stage, in front of 4,000 fans. That’s not a tale many would want to share with anyone, let alone include in their memoir, but Elton has never been one to hold back difficult truths, and Me — while a little skimpy on revelations about his brilliant, groundbreaking music — is essential reading for anyone who wants to know the difficult road that he walked while creating it.

REDISCOVERING JANIS JOPLIN

A new biography of the singer offers essential insight into the life and music of rock’s first female superstar By JON DOL AN

I

T’S BEEN nearly half a century since her tragic death at 27 from an accidental heroin overdose, but Janis Joplin’s life and music are still hugely resonant.

In her landmark new biography, Janis, writer Holly George-Warren cites Pink, Amy Winehouse, Lady Gaga, and Lucinda Williams among the many artists who have been influenced by the first female rock star’s courageous passion, earthy, genre-defying sound, and self-emptying vocal power. Joplin Janis was a white kid from a small town Holly George-Warren in Texas who fell in love with the SIMON & SCHUSTER blues and went on to define the 4 liberating spirit of San Francisco’s psychedelic scene in the late Sixties, growing in leaps as an artist during her brief career, even as she fought the era’s chauvinism and her own demons. “She embraced life with a joyous ferocity, though she could never escape a fundamental darkness,” writes George-Warren.

Joplin grew up in Port Arthur, Texas, during the Fifties and early Sixties, a “tomboy” who ripped off her shirt to roughhouse with the neighborhood boys. Influenced by her nonconformist father, she was soon pursuing a “beatnik” lifestyle, exploring her bisexuality, and singing Bessie Smith covers for coffee-shop folk crowds. Janis teems with awestruck descriptions of her singing and the complex, often troubled person behind it. “Janis always had this thing of total insecurity and total power at the same time,” recalls a bandmate in the pioneering Bay Area blues-rock band Big Brother and the Holding Company.

Big Brother’s set at the Monterey Pop Festival in June 1967 made Joplin a superstar — “Haight-Ashbury’s first pinup,” as she dubbed herself. But by boldly putting herself out there in a male-dominated rock scene, Joplin endured sexism that now seems almost primordial: Critics commented on her weight and appearance; one ROLLING STONE reviewer described her onstage as an “imperious whore.” There are other even more shocking moments of physical violence, including

a run-in with Jerry Lee Lewis, in which he punched Joplin, saying, “If you’re gonna act like a man, I’ll treat ya like one.”

George-Warren, who has written books about Alex Chilton and Gene Autry, respectfully handles the gossipy side of Joplin’s freeloving Sixties hedonism (fun fact: Joplin had a one-night stand with NFL great Joe Namath).

The author’s main focus is Joplin’s increasingly ambitious music, vibrant personality, and hard emotional journey. After leaving Big Brother, Joplin patterned a mix of blues, soul, rock, and country that culminated in her classic 1971 album, Pearl, released just months after her death.

Throughout the book, Joplin’s own voice comes alive via old interviews, accounts from friends and peers, and, most movingly, in letters to her parents in Texas, describing everything from the thrill of playing live to the process of mixing an album. “Played a hippie party in Golden Gate Park yesterday,” she wrote home in early 1967. “Co-sponsored by the Hell’s Angels who, at least in S.F., are really very nice.” Her family’s disapproval of her hippie lifestyle led to a fracture that would play a large role in pushing her deeper into an aloneness she’d respond to by falling further into drugs, which she claimed helped to “bury all her thoughts and deaden her from the world.” It’s a heartbreaking admission coming from someone who gave the world so much.

Σ ΕΝ Δ ΨΟ ΥΡ Χ ΟΥΓΗ Ι ΝΤΟ ΗΙ Β ΕΡ ΝΑΤ ΙΟΝ. ΔΑΨ ΟΡ Ν ΙΓ Η Τ. Τηε ρεαλ ηονεψ ψου λοϖε, πλυσ τηε φαστ, εφφεχτιϖε χουγη ρελιεφ οφ Ροβιτυσσιν.

NO ARTIFICIAL

Υσε ασ διρεχτεδ.. ♥2 Υσε Υσ ♥20 2 19 2019 9Γ ΓΣΚ ΣΚ Κ γρουπ γρο ρου ρουπ ουπ ο πο οφφ χομπ χο παν ανιε ανιε νιε εσσ ο ορ ιτσ τσ λιχ ιχχενσ ενσο ν ορρ..

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On Wednesday, September 25th, Rolling Stone hosted its first “In Conversation” discussion panel, in partnership with Ralph Lauren. Held at Polo Ralph Lauren’s New York City Prince Street store, the conversation featured a Q&A between Rolling Stone Senior Music Editor Patrick Doyle and Mark Ronson.

Ronson behind the scenes in his Polo Ralph Lauren attire.

Guests enjoying refreshments at the cocktail reception.

Guests engage in the conversation as Ronson dives deep into his experience as a record producer, his musical influences, and the creation of some of his biggest hits.

Attendees try on Polo Ralph Lauren apparel before the panel begins.

Doyle and Ronson catch up before the conversation.

Rolling Stone and Ralph Lauren came together to host an intimate conversation with Mark Ronson.

PHOTOS BY GRIFFIN LOTZ FOR ROLLING STONE

Doyle kicking off the discussion with Ronson.

Ray Romano, De Niro, and Pacino

The Irishman Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci, Harvey Keitel, Ray Romano, Bobby Cannavale, Jesse Plemons, Anna Paquin, Stephen Graham

STARRING

SCORSESE’S GOODBYE TO GOODFELLAS De Niro, Pacino, and Pesci hit career peaks in the director’s massive crime epic about memory, murder, and the Mob

PETER TRAVERS

FROM TOP: NETFLIX, 2; NIKO TAVERNISE/NETFLIX

I

T’S NO exaggeration to call The Irishman the movie event of the year.

After decades apart, director Martin Scorsese is back conducting Mob business with Robert De Niro (the two haven’t worked together since 1995’s Casino). Add Joe Pesci, Harvey Keitel, and Al Pacino to the mix, and prepare for fireworks. Can you believe Scorsese and the Scarface star have never joined forces? Now this director and these actors — all past their mid-seventies — make every minute count.

With The Irishman, America’s greatest living director creates his late-career masterpiece, a deeply felt addition that vibrantly sums up every landmark in his crime-cinema arsenal, from 1973’s Mean Streets through Goodfellas, Casino, Gangs of New York, and the Oscarwinning The Departed. But his latest is also a response, written in fever, blood, and poignant regret, to accusations that his films are Mob recruitment posters. No one can accuse this film of that.

In The Irishman, Scorsese tackles the most vicious killer of all: advancing age.

Yes, mobsters also die by the gun. No sooner is a gangster introduced than a caption appears citing grisly details such as “shot four times in the

+++++ Classic | ++++ Excellent | +++ Good | ++ Fair | + Poor

DIRECTED BY

Martin Scorsese

5

face in his kitchen.” So much for the glamorous life. But what of the hoods and wiseguys who outlive their sins?

Meet Frank Sheeran (De Niro), a real-life Mob soldier we encounter at a Philadelphia-area nursing home shortly before cancer brought him down in 2003 at 83. As the soundtrack swells with the Five Satins crooning “In the Still of the Night,” the camera tracks a feeble, wheelchair-bound Sheeran ready to keel over like Michael

Corleone in Godfather III. All alone — his family keep their distance — Sheeran fills us in on his career as the “Irishman” in the last half of the 20th century. It’s a time, the film theorizes, when history-making moments like hits on the Kennedys and the Cuban invasion may have links to the Mafia.

That’s the movie, a never-boring three-and-a-halfhour epic about a history of American violence, artfully shot by Rodrigo Prieto and with genius editing by Thelma Schoonmaker. Steve Zaillian’s probing script allows Scorsese to blend blistering action and comic takes on Mob rituals with raw emotion.

It’s the shreds of humanity in monsters that scare us because they make us Scorsese, see ourselves in De Niro. them.

Inset: Pesci.

Sheeran’s Mob baptism begins when the film flashes back to him in his thirties. De Niro plays him by way of a digital de-aging process that could hamper lesser actors.

But these aren’t lesser actors.

De Niro is monumental in one of his best roles, nailing every nuance as a World War II combat veteran whose killing skills find a home with the local criminal bigwigs.

Sheeran hits paydirt when he meets Philly capo Russell Bufalino, played by Pesci.

The actor’s Goodfellas showboating is replaced by a quiet intensity that’s even more chilling. Bufalino doesn’t moralize about betrayal.

“It is what it is,” he says, treating Sheeran like an adopted son he can cajole into committing murder.

To watch De Niro and Pesci spark each other again is a film lover’s dream.

It’s Bufalino who connects Sheeran to crime boss Angelo Bruno (Keitel) — and, most crucially, to Jimmy Hoffa (Pacino), the powerful president of the Teamsters Union.

Pacino looms like a colossus in a tour de force that can be both hilarious and horrifying, as when Hoffa insists that being more than 10 minutes late for a meeting is code for “fuck you.” He also excels in tender scenes with Sheeran’s daughter Peggy, played as a child by Lucy Gallina and later by Anna Paquin, whose mute awareness of Sheeran’s misdeeds speaks volumes.

Did Frank Sheeran kill Hoffa in 1975 on orders from Bufalino? The film, like Charles Brandt’s biography of Sheeran, I Heard You Paint Houses, says yes. Some of the incidents have been discredited; Hoffa’s remains have never been found. But Scorsese is more focused on these criminal lions in winter, their bodies in disrepair, their deeds and names forgotten, their hearts and minds leveled by the march of time. Whether you catch The Irishman in theaters or on Netflix (it starts streaming on November 27th), you’ll be watching Scorsese at the peak of his powers directing giants. It’s unmissable.

November 2019

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Reviews Movies

A SHARP WHODUNIT W H AT A K I C K to

watch whip-smart director Rian Johnson STARRING shake the cobwebs off Daniel Craig Jamie Lee Curtis the whodunit genre DIRECTED BY and make it snap Rian Johnson to stylish, wickedly 4 entertaining life for a new generation.

That’s what happens in Knives Out, a mystery that takes the piss out of Agatha Christie clichés. Johnson has experience with a large cast (see Star Wars: The Last Jedi). And he has a blast fooling us about who killed crime novelist Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer) on his 85th birthday.

That’s the cue for suave Detective Benoit Blanc — love the name, love the Southern drawl and deviltry of Daniel Craig — to round up the usual suspects at the author’s gothic country estate. There’s the old man’s creepy family, featuring Jamie Lee Curtis, Don Johnson, Michael Shannon, and Chris Evans (who gets most of the laughs). There’s also two grandkids fighting about Trump. The cops, headed by Lakeith Stanfield, suspect Thrombey’s young nurse (Ana de Armas), but devious Blanc prefers poking into noirish corners. Bless him. The butler didn’t do it, since the boss only employed a maid. It’s all terrific, twisted fun that actually does keep you guessing until the delicious end. P.T. Knives Out

DIVORCE SONG H OW D O E S a small tale of love and loss Marriage Story emerge as a major triumph and one of STARRING Adam Driver the very best movies Scarlett of the year? When Johansson it’s Marriage Story, DIRECTED BY a career high for Noah Baumbach writer-director Noah $ Baumbach (The Squid and the Whale), and for his stars, Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson. They say perfection is hard to find. Not this time. It’s right here.

Driver packs humor and heartbreak into Charlie, a New York theater director who can’t direct himself out of a crisis. Nicole ( Johansson), his wife of 10 years and the mother of their eight-year-old son, Henry (Azhy Robertson), wants to stop acting in Charlie’s plays and move to Los Angeles for pilot season.

Charlie sniffs at both L.A. and TV, so Nicole pushes for divorce. He has two lawyers, a minnow (Alan Alda) and a shark (Ray Liotta).

She hires a take-no-prisoners attorney (Laura Dern is sensational and then some). Driver’s performance is Oscar-worthy; Johansson once again proves she’s an actress of grit and grace.

But you don’t have to take sides for the hard truths and aching empathy of Marriage Story to bring you to your knees. P.T.

Curtis, Plummer, Johnson, and Shannon

Bale at finish line

NEED FOR SPEED V RO O M ! You

can feel the power thrumming under STARRING James Mangold’s Matt Damon Christian Bale Ford v Ferrari.

DIRECTED BY And that’s a shock, James Mangold because this thun4 derously exciting true story is based on a stuffy business proposition. Back in the 1960s, Henry Ford II (Tracy Letts) determined to beat Enzo Ferrari (Remo Girone) at his own game by building a hot, fast race car that could win the 24 Hours of Le Mans, pitting American crass against Italian class.

Luckily, Mangold fuels his formula plot with enough flesh-and-blood action to leave you dizzy with amazement. Matt Damon brings humor and heart to Texan Carroll Shelby, a former Le Mans champ who designs Ford’s rocket and persuades the suits to hire Brit driver Ken Miles (Christian Bale), a hothead allergic to corporate culture. Miles has a wife (Catriona Balfe), a son (Noah Jupe), and a collection of contrivances to sell. But Bale does it all with scorching wit and staggering physicality. He’s astonishing. So are the thrilla-minute racing scenes, shot by Phedon Papamichael with an eye for catching every flash of beauty and terror. Mission accomplished. P.T. Ford v Ferrari

RECONSIDERED

Take Two: ‘Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey’

Rolling Stone

AVAILABLE ON

YouTube, Amazon Prime, Google Play, iTunes

B E FO R E B E AV I S and Butt-head or even Wayne and Garth, we had Bill and Ted. The heavy-metal-obsessed San Dimas, California, teens (Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter) traveled through time to pass high school history in 1989’s Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure. But two years later they had an even crazier trip in Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey. While battling a villain from the future, the duo meet God, Satan, robot doppelgängers, Albert Einstein, and the Grim Reaper, played to sullen, bitchy perfection by William Sadler. It’s the rare comedy sequel that surpasses the original in its profound weirdness, never redoing old jokes. (See: the scene where they play Twister, Clue, and Battleship with Death.) A third Bill and Ted movie is due out next year. Most excellent. ANDY GREENE

Winter, Reeves, and (inset) Sadler.

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CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: CLAIRE FOLGER/LIONSGATE; MERRICK MORTON/© 2019 TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX; NELSON/ORION, 2; WILSON WEBB/NETFLIX

Johansson, Driver in better days

ENJOY RESPONSIBLY. ©2019 DEWAR’S, WHITE LABEL, ITS TRADE DRESS, TRUE SCOTCH, THE CELTIC DEVICE AND THE JOHN DEWAR SIGNATURE ARE TRADEMARKS. BLENDED SCOTCH WHISKY– 40% ALC. BY VOL. *THIS IS ONLY SPECIFIC TO THE WHITE LABEL PRODUCT.

D I D DY & D J K H A L E D [Cont. from 60] an inventor of music, an inventor of disruptive ideas. I have to come in and disrupt the place. When I came in with street fashion . . . there was streetwear, but I took it to a high-fashion level. I had to invent that. When I did Revolt, there was no black-owned network for the hip-hop community. I had to invent that. What I did with Bad Boy, I look at that as inventing things. It’s not like I put myself in a box and follow what somebody else has done. I have to dream the things that have not been accomplished.

KHALED I’ve been told that so much was impossible. I’m just getting started, so I wanna be that person to say, “There’s no wall. There’s no fence. Nothing can block your blessings.”

Who’s the first person who gave you a break?

KHALED My first person to ever give me a break was God. But the first big dog was Joe Crack [Fat Joe] for shouting me out on his record. He treated me like family; I’m the godfather of his daughter.

DIDDY For me it has to be the legend, may he rest in peace, Heavy D. I was trying to get into the music game, because I was affected by Run-DMC. I was at a Run-DMC concert and saw them hold up their Adidas. I remember the row I was in. I was like, “I don’t know what that is, but I want to do that.” It was about everything that I do: the branding, the ringmaster, the energy to the crowd. Then, the power of manifestation, I started to go on this journey where I wanted to be in the music industry.

Heavy D lived in my hometown. I didn’t really know nobody because I just moved from Harlem to Mount Vernon [New York], so I would stand outside his pizza shop and wait for him to come by so I could ask him to set me up an interview with Andre Harrell [the founder of Uptown Records]. But when I got the chance and I caught him in the pizza shop, instead of asking him to set up the interview, I asked him if I could be his manager. Because, you know, sometimes you get that opportunity, you gotta go for it.

KHALED You got to!

DIDDY I didn’t have experience, but eventually he got me the interview and I got an internship. I became vice president and president and went on to do different magical things in the music industry, through the power of God. KHALED That’s right.

DIDDY To go full-circle on that, when I sold out the Garden two nights in a row, I used to [descend] from the skies, right? I was looking down at the chair where I was at, saying one day I was going to be right there. So Heavy D gave me that chance to make that dream come true. I miss him so much.

Diddy, do you remember the first time you met Biggie?

DIDDY The first time I met Biggie was at Sylvia’s.

KHALED In Harlem?

DIDDY Yeah. I wanted to sign him so bad. And I saw he was a big guy, and I was from Harlem. I was like, “Man, the best thing for me to do is to invite him to Sylvia’s.” And the crazy thing was that when he sat down, I said, “What you want to eat?” He said, “I’m not hungry” [both laugh]. He would never eat around me!

It’s been 25 years since “Ready to Die.” What are the biggest changes you’ve seen in the industry?

DIDDY What was going on then is actually going on now. At that point we were moving off cassette to CDs. To have everybody having to go buy CD play-

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ers is like going from CD to streaming. It’s totally changed [everything].

You [used to] have to have it mastered four months in advance. Now you could make something and five seconds later [put it out]. That has given artists more freedom and made music more global.

The transition has made hip-hop the number-one genre of music in the world. At the same time, the process is different. The intention is different. [In 1994], it was based more on impact than numbers.

The plaques meant a lot, but it was the impact that your music was having on the streets and in the community. It wasn’t a numbers race. You can sneak into the industry now and be the kids playing around, not taking it seriously. They can wind up being a Grammy Award-winning, stadium-selling-out star. It’s a game where anything can happen. The rules have changed.

KHALED I agree with everything you said. There’s no excuse not to put something great out and get a response. Back in the day, it was more word of mouth. It was the impact. [Now] there’s no middleman. You can go straight to the consumer, the fans.

It’s really on you and your talent.

Khaled, you named your latest album after your son, Asahd. What do you remember about being dads for the first time?

DIDDY I had just got fired [from Uptown Records], so I was real nervous when Justin was born. I didn’t really know what to do. He was born the night before New Year’s Eve [in 1993]. I just started partying from then on. We were at this house in Scarsdale [New York], in this all-white neighborhood, right across from a golf course. I had my whole neighborhood from Harlem come to my house because I just had my firstborn baby. I was ready to hold my baby, my king, up. They trashed my house. It was the greatest party ever. I remember my baby-mother was mad at me because I wasn’t at the hospital. I was so excited to have a son, I told her I had to have this party.

KHALED It was so deep what you were just saying.

It was like a movie.

DIDDY I was looking at [my son] today and kissing him. Ain’t no greater feeling in the world.

KHALED I was at a stage in my life where it was real hard for me. I was putting out hits, doing Khaled, doing amazing things. But I was in some messed-up situations where it wasn’t paying off the way it needed to. I woke up one morning and said, “Man, I work this hard, got all these awards, got all these Number Ones, but I don’t see nothing that I have if it go tomorrow.” So I looked at my queen and told her, “Yo, Ma, I know one thing: I want to have a son, a daughter.”

She prayed on it. And she got pregnant. When Asahd came, I’ll never forget. When he came out, me and him locked eyes. My life changed on another level. All the blessings came upon me.

What do you look for in signing a new artist?

KHALED I look for someone who can work as hard as me or harder. I gotta be a fan. Yeah, I’m Puff ’s friend, but I’m also a big fan. Just because they haven’t put out a platinum record, you can still have that certain feeling when you meet somebody.

DIDDY To be honest, I’ve been in semiretirement. If you don’t see my name on all the Top 10 records, that means I’m not making music. I’m bringing Making the Band back in 2020. I’m contemplating, “Is there a role for me in music now?” I just know that for me, I would only be able to sign legends. To be honest, my decisions will be made through God. I’m at another frequency and level of music. It would have to be something that God fully put in my heart, like when I heard Biggie or I heard Mary [ J. Blige].

What advice would you, or do you currently, give your kids when it comes to being in the music industry?

KHALED I work hard every day to make sure [my music] is forever. It’s timeless. When I put my son as an executive producer on Grateful and Father of Asahd and have him on both the covers, when he grows up, I want to show him all the awards that he won. That’s going to live on forever, even if he doesn’t want to be in music.

DIDDY I give it to [my kids] simple and plain.

There’s two things: One, it’s all about the hit. That’s all that matters. On top of that, when you making the hit, you gotta realize only the song survives. I’m gonna be here forever. If you will follow in my footsteps, you gotta follow in forever footsteps. When it’s 500 years from now, they still gonna be playing “It’s All About the Benjamins,” “Hypnotize,” “Mo Money Mo Problems,” “I Need a Girl,” Mary J. Blige’s “Be Happy.” That’s the intention I went into it with.

I never was in it for the money. It’s all about the hit. When [my kids] bring me music, I tell them the truth. It’s all about the hit and only the song survives. Don’t be a sucker out here and make something that’s gonna be around for two years. They won’t remember your name. BRITTANY SPANOS STATEMENT OF OWNERSHIP, MANAGEMENT, AND CIRCULATION (Required by Act of August 12th, 1970: Section 3685, Title 39, United States Code). 1. ROLLING STONE 2. (ISSN 0491-2500) 3. Filing date: 10/1/19. 4. Issue frequency: Monthly. 5. Number of issues published annually: 12. 6. Annual subscription price: $49.95. 7. Complete mailing address of known office of publication: Wenner Media, 475 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10017. 8. Complete mailing address of headquarters or general business office of publisher: Penske Business Media, LLC, 475 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10017. 9. Full names and complete mailing addresses of publisher, editor & managing editor: Publisher, Brian Szejka, 475 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10017. Editor, Jason Fine, 475 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10017. Managing Editor, Alison Weinflash, 475 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10017. 10. Owner: Penske Business Media, LLC, 475 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10017.

11. Known bondholders, mortgages, and other security holders owning or holding 1 percent or more of total amount of bonds, mortgages or other securities: None. 12. Tax status: Has Not Changed. 13. Publisher: ROLLING STONE. 14. Issue date for circulation data: September 2019. 15. The extent and nature of circulation: A. Total number of copies printed. Average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months: 566,087. Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 490,334. B. Requested circulation.

1. Mailed outside-county requested. Average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months: 345,032. Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 306,165. 3.

Sales through dealers, carriers, street vendors, counter sales. Average number of copies each issue during the preceding 12 months: 23,379. Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 50,112. C. Total requested distribution. Average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months: 368,411. Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 356,277.

D. Non-requested distribution. 1. Outside-county non-requested copies. Average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months: 122,491. Number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 108,693. 4. Non-requested copies distributed outside the mail. Average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months: 3,729. Number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 2,135. E. Total non-requested distribution. Average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months: 126,220.

Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 110,828. F. Total distribution. Average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months: 494,631. Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 467,105. G. Copies not distributed. Average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months: 71,456. Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 23,229. H. Total average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months: 566,087. Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing: 490,334. I. Percent paid.

Average percent of copies requested for the preceding 12 months: 74.5%. Actual percent of copies requested for the preceding 12 months: 76.3%. 16. Electronic Copy Circulation: A. Paid Electronic Copies. Average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months: 82,478. Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 89,151. B. Total Request Print Copies + Request Electronic Copies. Average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months: 450,889. Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 445,428. C. Total Print Distribution + Request Electronic Copies. Average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months: 577,109. Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 556,256. D. Percent Paid.

Average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months: 78.1%. Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 80.1%. 17. Publication of statement of ownership for a Requester publication will be printed in the November 2019 issue of the publication. 18. Signature and title of editor, publisher, business manager, or owner: Brian Szejka.

R I N G O S TA R R & D AV E G R O H L [Cont. from 78] let’s walk across the road” [laughs].

We didn’t dress up like it’s a photo shoot; that’s how we dressed for that day. But it worked out well.

GROHL Love has always been a theme with the Beatles. At the beginning . . .

STARR Oh, all love songs.

GROHL There were love songs, like, to a girl. . . .

STARR “I Want to Hold Your Hand.”

GROHL But at what point did it turn into this more universal, sort of spiritual idea of love?

STARR Probably ’round about ’67, going into the Revolver album. I mean, you know, we were growing up, we were changing, we were smoking dope! And things unclouded, and I think that made big changes and we were used to being in the studio, we knew how to do that.

GROHL So I think that the sign of a great drummer is knowing who that drummer is within eight bars of the song. I think that’s the goal. I think a lot of it has to do with being self-taught, because you were just doing what came naturally to you, so you weren’t restricted by any of that stuff. To this day, when we’re in the studio — I’m sure every band in the world, if they want that fill — they say, “Hey, do a Ringo thing right there.”

STARR Well, that’s high praise coming from you, Dave. It’s like, not knowing has really helped me a lot. Even from starting, the kit was set up right-handed. I sat behind it, didn’t care I was left-handed. So I did it the best I could in a left-handed way, which, in the end, was great for me ’cause I suddenly had my own style. And the style was: There’s always a couple of seconds before I can do a fill. The only thing I do is write with my right hand. I’m a left-handed golfer.

GROHL [Laughs] That’s gotta be slang for something else.

STARR “Oh, you know, Ringo’s a left-handed golfer.” “Oooh! I thought he’d given all that up.”

You surprised me so much, when we went to that before-Grammy party [in 2016]. Who were you playing with, was it Beck?

GROHL Yeah, yeah.

STARR ’Cause I’m so used to you . . . like, I would tell [his son] Zak [about the drums], “You don’t have to hit them all.” But you have to hit them all, the way you play. And you played straight, and I’d never heard you play straight, and you were beautiful!

GROHL Thank you. Thanks, Ringo.

STARR I was expecting [drums furiously on table].

GROHL I think that growing up and learning to play by listening to the Beatles and a lot of early rock & roll, I got really into the groove before anything. As much as I loved crazy punk rock and really fast things like that, to me the most important thing always was either the feel or the swing or the simplicity of a song where it’s just meant to make everybody move.

STARR I always thought that’s what we do: Drummers hold it together. I never play over the vocals. If he’s singing, he doesn’t need “Drum Boogie” [Gene Krupa’s 1941 standard]. And I don’t do solos; I’ve just never enjoyed solos.

GROHL Well, I remember we talked about this. I think we were talking about practicing. . . .

STARR I never practice [laughs].

GROHL Nor do I! Because I don’t like playing alone.

I only like playing when there’s music.

STARR I’ll play with you all night, but on my own, after two and a quarter seconds, I’m like, “Ugh. That’s not what it’s about.” When I’m doing shows,

and people hold up their little seven-year-old: “This is Tommy. He loves you, and he’s taking drum lessons.” And I always say, “I hope he’s not taking too many!”

GROHL So, explain [your] book.

STARR Another Day in the Life, an expression we all know and love. What do you do on the road, on the downtime?

GROHL Honestly, I sit in my room and I write music.

STARR OK, well, I sit in my room and take photos of spoons and put them in my book, and take photos of an eagle that landed on my balcony. It’s also pictures of leftover food. Whatever’s going on at the time.

GROHL I think some people are born with a restless creative spirit.

STARR A gene.

GROHL A gene, and I’ve always been that way.

When I was young, I would go out into the backyard and find pieces of wooden sticks and make these el-

“No one can doubt Nirvana. The man [Kurt Cobain] had so much emotion. That’s what I loved. I’m an emotional guy. I don’t think anyone who listened to music with any courage could doubt him, because he was courageous.”

—R I N G O S TA R R

evated highways that my cars would roll down. And then I’d learn how to multitrack with my cassette deck, so I’d take a cassette and record a guitar part and then take that tape, rewind it, play it, and put a drum track with pots and pans [with another tape deck]. So I’ve always been that way. I almost felt like I was just a hyperactive kid that just needed to do something all the time.

And honestly, we’re similar in this way. I worked in a furniture warehouse. I never imagined that I’d become a famous musician. I played in bands. I would go on the road, come back, beg for my job back, go back to the factory, and I was happy with that. So when the whole Nirvana thing blew up, one of my first feelings was, “Wow, I don’t have to . . . ” STARR “. . . go back to the factory!” But we don’t know: That first record you had, that could’ve been the first and last, you know what I mean?

GROHL It could’ve been!

STARR “Love Me Do” could’ve been the first and last, but it went on. And there’s interviews of us, like, “Well, you know, it’ll probably last about four years.”

GROHL When the first check came in, my dad said, “You realize this isn’t gonna last, right? You have to treat every check like it’s the last one you’re ever gonna make.” He scared the shit out of me. It worked!

Ringo, what did you think when you heard Nirvana?

STARR Absolutely great, and the man himself [Kurt Cobain] had so much emotion. That’s what I loved.

I’m an emotional guy. No one can doubt Nirvana, ever. And who knew he’d end up where he ended up.

I don’t think anyone who listened to music with any courage could doubt him, ’cause he was courageous.

I don’t know the end story, and it’s not about him, and we lose a lot of people in our business early. And you think, “How harsh must it have been?” I mean, “Why don’t you call me?” You never know. This is the famous 27-year syndrome. A lot of them went by 27, like it’s that number — what, had they got it all in by then? Or maybe that’s just the way God planned it; I don’t know.

When John went, I was in the Bahamas. I was getting a phone call from my stepkids in L.A. saying, “Something’s happened to John.” And then they called and said, “John’s dead.” And I didn’t know what to do. And I still well up that some bastard shot him. But I just said, “We’ve got to get a plane.” We got a plane to New York, and you don’t know what you can do. We went to the apartment. “Anything we can do?” And Yoko just said, “Well, you just play with Sean. Keep Sean busy.” And that’s what we did.

That’s what you think: “What do you do now?”

The interesting thing is this guy Jack Douglas, the producer, brought this track of John’s to me [“Grow Old With Me,” from Lennon’s 1980 “Bermuda Tapes” demos] just this year; I’d never heard it. So he’s still in my life. And so it’s on the new album. But why he gave me this CD is [because] at the beginning, John says, “Oh, that would be great for Richard Starkey.”

GROHL Wow, you had never heard that?

STARR I well up every time I think [about it] — he’s talking about me. He says [imitates Lennon], “Hey, Ringo, this’d be great for you.” And I can’t help myself. [He chokes up.] I’m emotional now thinking of him 40 years ago talking about me on his tape and thinking of me. The four of us were great friends with a couple of side issues. And it was far out. So anyway, I didn’t know how to act. And then I got back to L.A., and I grieved, and then of course you always go through the grief.

And George, the same. [He tears up; his voice starts shaking.] I’m such an old crybaby. He’s laying there very ill — not long. And I’ve got to go to Boston, ’cause my daughter’s having an operation. And so I said, “Well, you know, I’ve got to go, George,” and he says, “Do you want me to come with you?” You know, he’s dying in a bit: “Do you want me to come with you?”

How many people say great things like that to you, really give themselves?

And Paul McCartney plays on that song, “Grow Old With Me,” on your album.

STARR Well, I wanted that. Paul’s been on five or six of my CDs. If he’s in town, he comes and plays, ’cause he plays great. And I thought his playing would add to the emotion of this song. So the interesting point is that Jack Douglas wanted to put an orchestra on it.

And I said, “No, quartet’ll be plenty.” So John wrote it, Paul’s on it, I’m on it, and Jack puts in a very recognizable George Harrison riff.

Dave, on the few occasions that you’ve performed Kurt’s songs since his death, has it helped you process the loss?

GROHL Well, I realized when Kurt died that there’s no right or wrong way to grieve. It takes funny turns.

You’ll be numb. You’ll remember the good things, then you’ll turn and remember some dark times.

I stayed away from music for a while. I wouldn’t even turn on the radio. And then I [Cont. on 94] November 2019

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R I N G O S TA R R & D AV E G R O H L

E LT O N J O H N & L A N A D E L R E Y

[Cont. from 93] eventually realized that music was the one thing that actually made me feel better. And music was gonna help me through that. So I started writing songs and recording them by myself.

And it’s also difficult when one of your friends or someone that you’re very close to, in real life, has become something more than a human being to others. So you sit in an interview and someone asks you these questions that are really emotional, that you’d never ask another stranger.

STARR Yeah, yeah.

GROHL “How’d you feel when your brother died?”

“How’d you feel when your family member died?”

It’s just not something that you’d meet someone and say. So it was tough for a while, but I realized that it was important for me to continue with life, and the thing that saved my life was music. More than a few times before that, my life was saved by playing music.

I haven’t played those Nirvana songs more than a few times in the last 26 years. In some ways, they’re off-limits, unfortunately. There have been a few times — at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, at a show maybe two years ago — that we got to play them. And it’s a funny feeling, because it feels like you’re back together with your friends from the band, but there’s just something missing. Like, we recorded a song with Paul once: me, Pat Smear, and Krist Novoselic. And it was such a trip for just the three of us to be playing again; it fits. It’s so easy. A couple of downbeats, and it sounds like Nirvana when Krist and I play together.

Nobody else makes that sound. So the first 20 minutes, I’m playing with Krist and Pat again, and it’s like a dream. Then I realize, “Oh, wait, Paul’s here too.”

What is it like to lock in with Paul McCartney?

STARR Oh, he is an incredible bass player. The most melodic bass player and inventive bass player.

GROHL It’s funny, the few times that I’ve jammed with him, I think people forget about his musicianship because they’re so blown away with the Beatles side of things. And then he puts on the instrument, and you’re like, “Jesus, he’s fucking good.” He really is. I mean, like, the bass line to “Hey Bulldog,” what is that?!

STARR Where did that come from?

GROHL I don’t know! Outer space — it’s crazy.

You both have a knack for writing extremely catchy drum parts. Do you think of them almost like hooks?

STARR I don’t know where I felt the need to go [plays the “Come Together” beat on table]. It’s like, where’d you get that? I don’t know! But it worked.

And John’s like, “Oh! OK.” GROHL I think air-drumming is important because you’ve connected with someone that has no fucking idea how to play the instrument that they’re pretending to play, but you’ve made an impression on them in some way that’s just as musical as singing a song.

I had one person, who will remain nameless, say to me once, in a publishing dispute, “Yeah, but drumming isn’t songwriting.” And I said, “Fuck you!

Why not?”

Nobody told me what to fucking play, and now whenever someone hears [air-drums the beginning of “Smells Like Teen Spirit”], that’s the intro to the song. I think that drumming as songwriting is very important — more than any sort of technical proficiency, to have it be as melodic or musical as all the other instruments. Just you doing that [“Come Together”] on the table, you know what fucking song that is! HANK SHTEAMER

[Cont. from 59] you. There’s maybe a little sadness in there, a little melancholia, a little nostalgia. That’s what I love. I love to sit there and cry. If something makes me cry, I feel as if I’m having a good time.

Does that sound as if I’m crazy?

LANA No! I mean, I love Leonard Cohen. But I banned myself from listening to people like Elliot Smith, because it’s, just, so much.

ELTON It can be one chord, it can be two chords.

But as long as it makes you feel something.

Lana, when did you know you had to be a songwriter?

LANA When I was really young, I always thought I would do it. But then when I got to college, I definitely thought I would not do it. And then, after a year enrolled in business school [Del Rey went to Fordham], I went back to it.

What happened?

LANA After my freshman year, I read Think and Grow Rich, by Napoleon Hill. It wasn’t necessarily about money. But he talked about burning every single bridge except for the only bridge that led to your greatest desire. And I thought, “My greatest desire is to sing.” So I switched out and became a philosophy major, because they told me I’d never get a job doing that [laughs].

ELTON We’ve all heard that one!

LANA So I thought, “Well, then, I’ll have to graduate and be a singer.”

ELTON That’s been the biggest thing in my life, having the hunch. It’s something that comes inside your gut and inside you. A gift from God or whatever you want to call it. When I wanted to leave the band [Elton left Bluesology in 1967], I had to have something concrete to hold on to, but I thought, “I’ll answer this advertisement about singer-songwriters.”

I’d only written a couple of songs, and I was quite chubby. I didn’t have any self-esteem, but I went because anything was better than playing to people not interested in what you were playing.

And the envelope I picked up [at Liberty Records] — there were so many envelopes, it could have been anybody else’s — was Bernie’s. How weird is that?

That’s happened about five or six times in my life, where I’ve had a hunch: “I’ve got to do something.”

LANA What a big testament to shutting one door completely. That was actually going to make me ask you a funny question. Do you meditate?

ELTON I don’t. I’m such a fidgeter, I cannot meditate. David, my husband, meditates all the time.

LANA I’m so ADHD, you’d never know, but I cannot stay still. But my favorite thing is to mix future tripping with inward seeking.

What is future tripping?

LANA Like what [Elton] said, about always looking for the new. I thought it would be cool to combine future tripping with a little meditation. And then, all of a sudden, your finger’s on the pulse of something you didn’t even know was there. And then you put out a record that sounds a lot like other people’s and you’re like, “Oh, wow. They must have been on the same wavelength.” I love that combination. And I was never someone who liked to sit still.

ELTON If you continue with that frame of mind, you will always produce something of substance. And the surprise in life is the greatest element.

LANA And substance to yourself, which I think is the most valuable thing.

ELTON Ten years ago I never thought I’d be saying goodbye on the road. But I didn’t have a family, and

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I love it more than anything else [Elton and David Furnish have two sons, Elijah and Zachary, ages six and eight]. I’ve been traveling since I was 16. My life has been so unstructured. If we hadn’t had children, David and I would have been two very wealthy gay guys going around the world, but to what purpose?

The purpose now is to make sure that our boys have the best education, the best chance of doing things, and, most of all, they’re filled with love. And that they have fun. Because, boy oh boy, do they give us a lot of fun.

LANA That’s a part of that intuitive knowing. I love how the last page of your book was about, “Well, what am I going to do now? . . . I’m going to be, well, as normal as I can be.” For someone who comes from a chaotic, more eccentric place, I actually think it’s the most beautiful thing you can aim for.

ELTON That’s what life is, so brilliant. If you’re willing to accept that life will change and you roll with it, it will always be brilliant.

Elton, you made clear in “Rocketman” that you had to kill Reginald Dwight to become Elton John. But, Lana, you recently tweeted, “Never had a persona.

Never needed one.” What did you mean by that?

LANA That’s what I believe, that I’ve never had one.

I believe I wear my hair high, and that’s kind of the end of it for me. I mean, I like to get dressed up and everything, but no one ever said that Elton John was a different person from Reg [Dwight] or whatever. It’s like, just because I wear a babydoll dress onstage or high heels . . . I really don’t need a persona. I’m at the dog park, I’m at Valvoline freaking filling up my own gas tank, and I don’t pretend not to be.

Still, there’s a lot of mystique around you. Unlike most pop stars, nobody knows anything about you.

LANA But it’s not on purpose.

ELTON That’s the best thing to have. Mystique is the greatest thing you could possibly have. People think they know me, but they just talk about the hair, the glasses, the spending. They didn’t know anything about me. I never do interviews anymore. The mystique is so important. Your mystique is your biggest asset. It’s what Prince had. Nobody knew the fuck what Prince was like.

LANA It’s just that my family is still around and close. There’s only so much I could put on the table, coming from where I come from. I’m limited in what I could say in terms of being open. Maybe in 10 years.

ELTON Thank you very much. This was so good.

LANA I didn’t know you had a show tonight. When I have a show, I can’t hardly see anybody. I’m like a wreck in the morning.

ELTON Oh, I go [to the venue] and have a nap, and then I see everyone [backstage] before the show and get it together, because I don’t want to pace around waiting to go on. Everyone has their own routine.

LANA So, are you here [in Los Angeles] for a while?

ELTON I leave Friday to go to San Francisco to do a show there, and then I fly to Vancouver. I do another show in San Francisco, and then I’m playing Canada.

I do three in Vancouver, two in Saskatoon, two in Edmonton, two in Winnipeg, and then I come back here to promote the book.

LANA That is amazing.

Is it sad to say goodbye to audiences every night?

LANA I like that question!

ELTON [Shakes head] There are some places you think, “Thank fuck I don’t have to come back here!

Yeah! Bye!” I’m not going to say where, though. Oh, my God. No. LANA I knew you were going to say that.

PATRICK DOYLE

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JOE BIDEN [Cont. from 51] half-bright anachronism who could move the chains in Congress, but was no longer a viable archetype for national contention.

Obama and then-New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson were believable leaders of the party’s new multicultural coalition; Hillary Clinton offered excitement as a possible first female president; John Edwards spoke to a nascent class-based progressive movement. What did Biden represent that meant a damn thing anymore?

A lot, as it turned out. The perception that Biden killed his campaign with inappropriate remarks about Obama, Indian Americans (“You cannot go to a 7-11 or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent”), and other groups, in addition to an iffy history on racial issues like busing, was offset by Obama’s naming of Biden to be his running mate.

Pundits believed the move was designed to “reassure white voters” in “economically strapped” areas.

Biden does have a talent for projecting “authenticity,” an electoral strength he shares with Trump.

About once a day, you can peer directly into his cerebral cortex.

This year, as Biden’s campaign gained momentum, The New York Times reported that Biden’s relationship with Obama was a marriage of racial convenience. Obama told Virginia’s Tim Kaine in 2008, “You’re the pick of my heart, but Joe is the pick of my head.” Obama wanted “someone with gray in his hair,” because he, Obama, was “deeply worried about a backlash against a black man at the top of the ticket,” and believed an “older white running mate would ease fears in battleground states.”

Thus Joe Biden earned a place in history books at center stage of a great moment of racial healing, walking into the White House as the partner of America’s first black president, precisely because his own political career had foundered on a bed of Archie Bunkerisms. He won by losing.

This was an insane (but also darkly funny) piece of luck, but Biden by all accounts made the best of it. He reportedly won Obama over with his dedication to family and with the effort he put into his role as running mate, which included learning to “shut up,” as former Obama aide David Axelrod recalled.

In 2020, the calculus is similar. Biden in almost every respect is a flawed politician. For progressives, he offers little, especially given his history supporting policies like the Iraq War and NAFTA, while not only opposing Medicare for All, but regularly dissembling about it (“Medicare goes away as you know it!”). Past support of legislation like the 2005 bankruptcy bill highlight his unfortunate ties to corporate interests

like the powerful credit-card companies in Biden’s home state of Delaware.

Those who are hoping for a quick-thinking zinger machine who’d shine in a campaign against Trump can’t take much solace in the face-plant-a-day pattern of Biden’s run to date. A general election pitting an angry, feces-hurling Trump against this version of Biden has awesome disaster potential.

To all of these objections, there’s basically one response: He’s better than Trump. Even if he’s losing faculties, has a few objectionable character quirks, and is too cozy with financial interests, the argument goes, Biden is at least not a terrible human being.

Biden does have a talent for connecting and projecting “authenticity,” a concept of dubious value in someone 46 years into a political career, but still.

Many see in his incautious statements realness absent in slicker internet-age politicians. In this sense — and this shouldn’t necessarily be taken as a negative — he shares an electoral strength with Donald Trump, whose tweeting habits get him in deserved trouble but also rally fans who appreciate being able to access a politician without barriers. The Biden effect is similar: About once a day, you can peer directly into his cerebral cortex.

Former Howard Dean campaign manager Joe Trippi, who first met Biden back in 1987, says all “authentic” candidates have this problem: They mangle words, not being afraid to say what they think. In the case of Biden this year, Trippi says Democrats will not only have to ask themselves if they can get past that problem to focus on the bottom-line character proposition, but also if they should.

“Is he a guy stuck in his ways, still able to connect, still mangling unapologetically but prepared to be president who can read a teleprompter and talk to us sincerely in most moments?” Trippi asks. “Or is it something a lot more? I have no idea.”

It may not come to this. Biden is no longer the clear front-runner. The health problems of Sanders have coincided with a surge in support for Warren, and even apple-cheeked South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg is out raising him. Some commentators are noting similarities between Biden’s campaign and that of Jeb Bush, another early front-runner and “invisible primary” winner whose campaign collapsed amid a long-term dearth of small-money donations. It’s not as bad as being compared to Mike Dukakis, the campaign-journalism-cliché equivalent of circling vultures, but Jeb comparisons aren’t a good sign, either.

After the event in Vegas, crowd members almost all say the same thing. They like the way Biden has handled the beating he’s taken all around, from media jerks like me, from Democratic rivals, and especially from Donald Trump. “Class,” says Alicia Tarr.

“Goes nose to nose with someone, doesn’t put him down.” “Experience,” says a local print-shop owner named Richard. “Not too radical.”

Ellen Vernon, a kindly Belize native, wanders out of the community center last of all the audience members, wearing a smile. She’s a fan of Obama’s, and predisposed to Biden, but his forbearance this campaign season in the face of constant attacks added to her admiration.

“He never gets mad,” she says. “Now that is a man.”

I ask her how she thinks a candidate with so many issues could prevail in a general election.

“People,” she says with a sigh, “have soft hearts.”

This might be true. But while there’s still time to pick a different nominee, should they? It’s a tough question, and Democrats are running out of time to answer it.

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Danny DeVito The veteran actor on loyal ‘It’s Always Sunny’ fans and President Penguin Who are your heroes?

On the political side, I’m very left, if you wanted to put a tag on it. I’m a humanitarian, and I like Bernie Sanders for what he’s talking about. I love Cornel West and Noam Chomsky. There are people trying to figure out how we can save our dying plan-

DeVito appears in ‘Jumanji: The Next Level,’ out soon.

et and make room for everybody in it and take care of everybody. They show me the way.

What advice would you give to the 20-year-old you?

Imagine that you’re a rubber ball going down a river. Every once in a while, you get stuck behind a rock and you have to wait it out until that river flows a little stronger, or a little less, and move away from that rock. Don’t fret when you find a little rock in the way, or a bump in the road.

Continue on with your purpose, continue toward your goal, and everything is going to be good.

What movie of yours are you the most proud of, and why?

Matilda. Every kid in the world comes up to me and says hello because I’m Matilda’s dad, and it makes me feel good, and it made my kids feel good. And kids pass it on to their younger brothers and sisters. It means a lot to them to understand that they’re not alone — people care about them. It’s a very positive movie even though

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Rhea [Perlman] and I play these uncaring parents.

When you played the Penguin in Batman Returns, he ran for political office.

Do you see any parallels between his rise to power and Donald Trump’s?

Oswald Cobblepot is much more passionate and has a much bigger quest and has much more motivation than Mr. Rich Boy. Oswald is misunderstood; he’s a bird who cannot fly. [Trump’s] father gave him $400 million.

The guy was born with a silver spoon in his ass.

Do you think the Penguin would have made a better president than Trump?

Oh, God, Oswald would be so much better. He’d probably eat your kids, but he would be so much better.

You’ve been playing Frank Reynolds on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia for 13 years — a pretty unglamorous role. Are there ever moments when you’re, say, in your underwear and covered head-to-toe in hand sanitizer and you think, “I’m too old for this shit”?

No, no, no, no, no. I don’t ever think that. Honestly, I don’t think I’m too old for that shit. I feel like being an actor is like you get a chance to be a kid. Not many people get to keep playing when

November 2019

they get into their seventies, and I keep playing. So I look at it as a real plus.

What have you learned about relationships that you didn’t understand as a young person?

Embrace the people who are around you, and allow them to embrace you. That’s love, being around folks you care about and who you think about and you want to protect. It’s something that you have to make yourself available for. If you do that, it’s really a cool thing. I am very fortunate — all my life, I’ve had really close, close people, and I care about them deeply, and I’m lucky that they give it back.

What are the best and worst parts of success?

Oh, there’s no bad parts; it’s all good.

But the best part is getting up in the morning. I love just getting up and doing what I want to do.

You don’t get annoyed when strangers ask for selfies?

No, no, no. I dig that. Listen, 14 years Sunny has been on because of that. Do you know when you got to worry?

When?

When you’re walking down the street and nobody wants a selfie. So bring on the selfies, baby. ANDY GREENE ILLUSTRATION BY Mark Summers