He pauses the memory to order a late breakfast—two over-easy eggs, a bowl of grits, an Americano—then resumes explaining how boxing prepared him for larger and larger stages as one of the biggest breakout stars in Nashville. “I was a super shy kid. Still am in a lot of ways. The ring is where I learned how to be in front of people and enjoy the roar of the crowd.”

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Sporting a heavy red flannel shirt and camo cargo pants, with strands of hair sticking out from under his trucker hat, Wilson looks much younger than his 46 years, which he admits is ancient for someone just nominated for CMA New Artist of the Year. (Shaboozey, the next oldest among the nominees, is 16 years younger than Wilson.) 

“The 25-year-old version of me was a different human being altogether,” he says, laughing, to let you know it’s an understatement. “I can’t imagine that kid trying to make a record. But I try not to get fixated on how many times the Earth has gone around the sun since I was conceived. That seems like a pretty arbitrary metric to evaluate someone’s relevance, especially in art. If anything, it’s given me the experience necessary to make hard decisions and appreciate the wins.” 

He’s just back from a short set of dates culminating in a festival appearance on the East Coast, followed by a local dinner for CMA nominees. Wilson hasn’t shaken off all the miles just yet, but he’s hoping a few rounds in the ring might help. “My gym is just around the corner, so this is my little place. I usually come in here and grab a little something before I train. When I’m in town, that is.” Once a Golden Gloves contender, he no longer spars competitively. “I’m still obsessed with it, but now I just train.” 

To talk with Wilson about anything—music, life, coffee, Nashville traffic—is to talk about boxing, which offers a handy analogy for nearly every aspect of life and music. Ask him how he’s handling his sudden success and juggling all those responsibilities, and he’ll relate the philosophy he learned in the ring: “The worst thing you can do is compete with yourself. You gotta take your wins for the wins that they are and move on to the next fight. You can’t start feeling like you have to outwin your last win.”

Ask him about sequencing his 2023 breakout album, Søn of Dad, and he’ll explain that “round 1 is the most important round in the fight, at least in amateur boxing.” So he chose “The Devil” as the leadoff track because its lyrics about the American apocalypse are meant to knock you off balance. He devises a gothic tableau of the Midwest, a fitting backdrop for his stories of loss, confusion, and perseverance. It’s one of the darkest country records of the 2020s, but also one of the wiliest and one of the weirdest. 

It’s also been a slow-burn success story, released to glowing reviews but negligible sales. However, thanks to Wilson’s intense live shows, his inventive guitar playing, and his thorny songs about masculine vulnerability, Søn of Dad gradually attracted more and more attention, prompting a deluxe edition this year featuring a handful of bonus tracks (including his transformative cover of Ben E. King’s “Stand By Me”). While he’s not trying to outwin himself, he’s spent the year notching knockouts: touring with Hardy and Eric Church, dueting with Shaboozey for The Long Walk soundtrack, and releasing a mesmerizing covers EP featuring imaginative takes on Smashing Pumpkins, the Postal Service, and Nirvana. (Even if you’re tired of hearing “Something in the Way,” you still need to hear Wilson’s blistering version.)

Wilson finds it all baffling. “I figured I’d release this record and be done with it,” he says. “I figured nobody would give a damn about it, but at least I could say I threw it out into the universe. Whether or not it flew was out of my hands, but it turned out to have some wings. You can get real mystical real quick with all of this, but there’s something way bigger than me in this fight.”

ROUND 2

As the waitress sets his food on the table, Wilson recalls the first time he heard Tim McGraw’s “Don’t Take the Girl.” He was 15 years old, already a veteran of the ring but still a confused kid. “I remember hearing that song on the school bus, and it made an absolute mess out of me, the way it was crafted and the way it was executed. It was magic. That’s what made me obsessed with songwriting, and that’s when I knew I wanted to go to Nashville.” He grew up just a few hours north, in Seymour, Indiana, a town of 20,000 souls, and listened religiously to Nirvana, Soundgarden, and other heavy bands of the 1990s. “But there was no path to songwriting in Seymour. There wasn’t a career day bulletin for songwriting.”

He cuts up his runny eggs and mixes them with the grits. That’s not entirely true, he admits. Seymour is also the hometown of heartland rock god John Mellencamp, who chronicled southern Indiana in songs like “Jack & Diane,” “Pink Houses,” and “Small Town.” 

“I’m not surprised he has become such a successful painter, because Mellencamp was painting my hometown in a very Norman Rockwell way. I was lucky enough to live in that painting and authenticate it,” he says. The Coug was a hero of Wilson’s, offering early songwriting lessons along with proof that this town could produce a vital artist. “He doesn’t pull his punches. He’s always been pretty blunt, so I learned to be pretty blunt. When I got to Nashville, I discovered that a lot of people want to wear headgear and a mouthpiece, and they want to play it as safe as possible. I wanted to go for the knockout.” 

It wasn’t music that finally got Wilson out of Seymour, but microbiology. His interest in the subject was itself a form of rebellion, then became something to rebel against. “I grew up super religious, Nazarene Pentecostal. Real repressed. Exorcisms and tent revivals and all that stuff. I tried to get slain in the spirit when I was a kid, but it didn’t work. I thought the biggest middle finger I could give to that life was a science degree. I’m going to study science and prove all you crazy-ass religious zealots wrong.” After high school, he enrolled at Middle Tennessee State University, just south of Nashville, and learned quickly that “science is just a tool. It’s like a chainsaw. You use it wrong and you cut your damn leg off. It’s not an ideology. It’s a truth detection tool.” 

For years he tried to balance music, science, and boxing. He worked contract gigs for laboratories around Nashville while touring in the indie rock quartet AutoVaughn. “I was the lead guitar player, not the singer or songwriter. I was kind of a shredder. It took a lot for me to come out of my shell and do that. We got to play in front of some big crowds, and as nervous as I’d get before a show, at least I knew I wasn’t going to get knocked out in front of those people. So the bar was pretty low.” 

AutoVaughn ran its course and Wilson accepted a full-time job at a food company in Franklin, Tennessee. “Being a poor kid, it was the best money I’d ever seen. I worked there for four years and didn’t think of myself as a guitar player anymore. But I did start to focus on songwriting. That’s what attracted me to Nashville in the first place. The songs just wouldn’t leave me alone.” Eventually he gave up that big salary to see what he could make of himself in Nashville.

Wilson, who has co-written songs with Lori McKenna, the Brothers Osborne, and Warren Zeiders, draws heavily from his own life, not just events or emotions but details drawn from his ’90s adolescence. “I won’t forget that first girlfriend that got me into Boyz II Men,” he sings on “Year to Be Young 1994.” “Hiding in my headphones, lay on my bedroom floor.” 

The year is significant: Kurt Cobain took his own life in 1994, and Wilson first heard “Don’t Take the Girl.” But Wilson’s nostalgia is never rosy. He’s not escaping to a simpler time, nor is he yelling at the kids to get off his lawn. On songs like “Year to Be Young” and “American Gothic” (“Watchin’ Days of Our Lives on a secondhand couch, nicotine-soaked wood panels of the house”), remembering is a form of reckoning. His memories can still hurt. They can still leave bruises. They still bring out the fighter in him.

ROUND 3

Stephen Wilson Sr. died in 2018 after a short illness. It’s impossible to state how hard his son took the loss. “I’ve experienced a lot of trauma in my life, but his death was by far the greatest trauma. He got me my first guitar. He was my first trainer and cornerman. He had a really hard life, but he overcame crazy odds just by persevering. That’s something I got from him, just learning to hang back.” 

He immediately started writing songs about his father and their rocky relationship: thorny, unsentimental songs like “Father’s Son,” which enumerates the many ways Jr. rebelled against Sr. along with the many more ways that rebellion strengthened their bond. Over a gut-string guitar theme, Wilson sings in a ragged voice: “I wear his blue-jean jacket and his name like a badge of honor. I used to hate being called Junior, now I don’t mind any longer.” 

With his split of his father’s life insurance policy, Junior started recording and releasing those new songs. “We did it all on the cheap and recorded until the money ran out. It was a desperate attempt to keep him alive.” When “Year to Be Young” went viral on TikTok, it brought in enough money to record even more songs. He knew he wanted to make a double album, a statement record, something akin to a monument to his father. Søn of Dad examines their tumultuous relationship as cornermen and rivals, but it also considers the nature of loss and life. “I miss my father every day, the kinda pain I pray don’t fade away,” he sings on “Grief Is Only Love.” “I don’t feel like crying, but I just keep crying.” 

It’s the sound of someone processing unfathomable loss in real time, and Wilson’s disdain for pat reassurances and cheap platitudes—of the everything-happens-for-a-reason or God-works-in-mysterious-ways variety—makes his songs intimately, deeply relatable to anyone who has lost someone important. Which is just about everybody. “When I made that record, I felt like a scientist keeping track of his findings. I had a hypothesis, and I got to test it against the world. Now I have all these results. But what I think I learned is that if I’d just been a scientist when my father passed, I would’ve repressed it, not had any way to express myself. So I’m grateful I have this outlet.”

That may actually be the secret to the album’s longevity and to Wilson’s grassroots success. His findings are persuasive, which is another way of saying his battles all sound hard fought, his triumphs hard won, his conclusions just plain hard. He’s already been living with these songs for years, and he’s resigned himself to playing them 150 times a year for the rest of his life. “It’s still very painful. I won’t lie. It’s utterly exhausting. I’ve had breakdowns onstage singing these songs, and I’ve seen grown-ass men bawling their eyes out during our shows. But if they’re willing to go there, why can’t I? It’s a cycle of healing that I’m grateful to be a part of. It definitely feels like a bigger mission than, ‘Oh, here are some bops.’” 

Wilson gulps the last of his coffee and asks the waitress for the check. He’s anxious to get to the gym for his first training session after too long on the road. “This guy trains real fighters, so you don’t mess with his time. He’ll kill me if I miss this session.” 

As he settles up, he offers one final boxing analogy: “I’ve spent my lifetime learning how to stay out of my own way. That’s a skill in itself, not suffocating your own fire. So I’m ready. I feel like I’ve been training for this stage for a long time.” 

To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, click here.

That’s when singer Ellie Rowsell suddenly cries out: “Ahhh!” 

For a split second, she is completely terrified and recoils as a black, beetle-sized intruder travels across the carpet near her feet. The scene is like one of those prank videos that interrupt your morning death scroll on the phone, where some poor bystander is abused by the appearance of a fake spider, plastic snake, or some other primal fear. Except this time it was just me, allowing my bottle cap to fall to the floor.

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“Oh, I thought it was a beast, but it was the lid rolling along,” Rowsell says with a relieved smile, relaxing into her chair as her bandmates chuckle. She remains calm for the next hour.

From all appearances, these four seem to still enjoy each other’s company, with a comfort level and ongoing excitement about their band that is contagious. With an ambitious new album, The Clearing, about to drop, they also continue to lean forward in their music, stretching out on some new songs such as the effervescent “The Sofa” and the shimmery, alluring “Bloom Baby Bloom,” with a music video showing a sparkly Rowsell amid a company of rehearsing dancers living out a kind of Fame/All That Jazz/A Chorus Line moment.

Recorded in Los Angeles, The Clearing is their first for Columbia/Sony Music, after three albums with U.K. indie label Dirty Hit. They’re ready to see what a major label can do.

The band members around the table sound pleased to be here: singer-guitarist Rowsell, in salmon-colored camisole and corduroy trousers, feet up on her chair and safe from bugs and bottle caps; guitarist Joff Oddie, now bearded and shaggier than before; bassist Theo Ellis, in platinum hair and tattooed arms; and drummer Joel Amey, bearded in blue denim and a snug T-shirt.

This time, Wolf Alice recorded in the studio with Greg Kurstin, the Grammy-winning producer of Adele, Beck, and Foo Fighters, with a long resume of hits and modern classics with a staggering range of artists from Lily Allen to Gorillaz, Pink, Paul McCartney, Kendrick Lamar, Flaming Lips, and Sia. Oddie first thought to collaborate with Kurstin on the last album, but it didn’t work out until The Clearing. 

In the past, the guitarist had always believed that most producers fell into different categories—that they were either good engineers, gifted musicians, or strong songwriters, but Kurstin is different. 

“Greg is seemingly at the top of the tree of all of those,” Oddie says. “He’s just an incredible songwriter, one of the best musicians I’ve ever seen. And technically he’s just fantastic in his studios. It’s such a privilege to be able to work with someone of that kind of stature.”

They were in L.A. working together for three months, coming in five days a week, starting mid-morning and usually ending for the day by 7 p.m. On the first day, the band made some quick progress with their first attempt, the swampy groove of “Safe in the World.” It was a good sign.

“When you start hearing something back in the first week that you really hoped and dreamed you would hear, it’s really exciting for where you could go next,” says Amey.

Some songs were composed back in England over a period of months before bringing them into the studio in L.A.

“People talk about a song that just comes to you and it feels really amazing, but that’s super rare,” says Rowsell. “I’m kind of acknowledging that things take time and a lot of effort and need work. So you would sit down and write a song, and then instead of being like, ‘Right, I’ve done it,’ in a week or so, I’d be like, ‘How do I make this better?’ That’s how that is now.” 

That said, when she finally has a song written and demoed to her satisfaction, it’s an especially good moment loaded with promise. “The best feeling for me is when you have a demo and you keep listening to the demo,” she says. “It’s being like, ‘OK, this is good because I keep listening to it.’ Everything after that, it’s quite hard to know whether it’s finished or whether it’s good. There’s so many ways to skin a cat. It is quite hard to have that feeling of, like, ‘Ah, this feels amazing, it’s done.’”

By the time a song appears on a Wolf Alice album, it’s gone through the wringer and back again, says Oddie. “Things have kind of been constructed, deconstructed, put back together, recorded, done in different versions, and then finally get a rendering at the end,” he explains. “It’s a hell of a lot of editing.”

A lot of Rowsell’s songs are inspired by real life, but even when she’s writing an angry tune, she’s more likely to be laughing than gnashing her teeth as she sketches the words out. There are some especially sharp edges in the lyrics of album opener “Thorns,” amid lush waves of keyboards and a soaring psychedelic swirl, as Rowsell sings in a warm inviting timbre in contrast to the message: “Did you have to take the knife out? … Would the wounds have healed had you not wrote the words down?”

Getting vocals recorded to her satisfaction is the next challenge. “It can be really hard,” Rowsell says. “You want to inject an emotion into it, so you’ve got to get into the right head space. And it’s a bit confusing sometimes when you feel like you’ve taken a really good take and then you listen back to it and it doesn’t have any emotion and you’re like, ‘Well, how do I get it then?’ So it’s all really complicated.”

Her voice has evolved over time, stretching from the band’s early folk and rock songs to a shimmery sensual pop sound that would have fit in a ’70s discotheque. Her most comfortable place used to be quiet and soft, as it is again on the new album’s piano ballad “Play It Out.” But she can do more now, and trained herself partly by doing private impressions of other singers, from Patti Smith to Billie Eilish. “Doing impressions of other vocalists changed my way of singing and writing. It is weird,” Rowsell says. “When I was doing Patti Smith, I was like, ‘Oh my God, it feels so weird in my throat.’ I expanded my knowledge of physically how to use my voice.”

England’s The Independent recently declared Wolf Alice “Britain’s foremost guitar band,” but the four group members are shy about claiming such a title. Asked about it, they all laugh. “Well, I think we’re too English to say, ‘Yes,’” Oddie says. And Ellis shakes his head with a grin, “Yeah, that would be fucking crazy.”

They do agree that guitar music is having a real moment of intense interest in their home country, partly due to the reunion of Oasis. With a full calendar of sold-out stadiums around the world ahead of them, the Gallagher brothers have already unleashed an unexpected season of guitar worship for generations of fans, many of them not even born when the first Oasis hits landed.

“They’ve got incredible songs. And I think (with) them coming back, they’ve got a huge generation of really young fans. That’s pretty cool that people have been exposed to guitar music like that,” says Ellis, who adds that seeing a vibrant rock act like Amyl and the Sniffers at Glastonbury this year, and Fontaines D.C. last year, among many others, has been inspiring. “I remember going around and being like, there’s a lot of bands at the moment and that’s really nice to see. It does feel exciting.”

They see the impact of guitar bands in other corners of music too, as even pop artists adopt elements of rock culture into their mix, says Oddie. “You see the big pop stars and they’re presenting like a rock band—Olivia Rodrigo and Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan—it’s all kind of around this live band thing. It seems to have permeated that bit of culture. I don’t know what that says.”

Most of Wolf Alice still live in North London, though Amey is down the coast a bit in Hastings. But Los Angeles has become a frequent and welcome destination. In a few hours, they would be onstage for the first of two nights at the 500-capacity Troubadour, just minutes away from their hotel, and they’re in town a few more days for radio interviews and an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! to play the single “Bloom Baby Bloom.”

Back in January 2015, Wolf Alice’s very first U.S. tour was just three dates—two in New York, plus their debut in Los Angeles. During that first visit to New York, the Londoners saw urban parallels with their home town, but L.A. was very different. “I definitely remember being like, ‘Whoa, this is crazy,” Rowsell says, laughing.

Ellis adds of that initial visit, “My early memories of L.A. are some of my best memories of my life.

“Everything smells like sage. There’s these crazy motorways everywhere. There’s the desert, there’s the mountains, and there’s the sea. And it’s got the kind of movie aspects where it’s stuff that you’ve only seen on a screen.”

Wolf Alice recorded their second album, Visions of a Life, in the city, and lived for a couple of months in Echo Park. “That was just so fun, being 25 and making an album in L.A.,” Ellis recalls. “L.A. has such music romance to me. It’s got amazing studio history and there’s so many great musicians everywhere. People really have a reverence for music and they’re quite protective over it, which I don’t think is necessarily the case everywhere else.”

At one time, they were staying just steps away from the Hollywood Walk of Fame, where the sidewalks are famously decorated with plaques paying tribute to stars of film, TV, radio, and music. And just like on the Tube back in London, they’ve used L.A. public transportation without hesitation. That includes a Metro subway system running underneath the car-obsessed metropolis that a lot of locals seem unaware even exists.

Wolf Alice have spent enough time in L.A. to identify a couple of favorite spots in the neighborhoods of Hollywood and Los Feliz “to get wings and drink Bud Light,” says Ellis. “If we’re having a crisis or a good time, we go there.” There’s also the Hollywood Reservoir up in the hills, to commune with nature and the deer population, right in the middle of the city.

So coming back to town to make their newest album was an easy choice, fulfilling the creative impulses of each one of them.

Near the end of The Clearing, the album shifts into “White Horses” with a slippery acoustic guitar riff, and a breathless lead vocal from drummer Amey: “I don’t need to solve my unknown identity / Just need an answer to the question in the taxi.” Then from Rowsell comes a searing vocal counterpoint, turning the song into a duet as she wails with echoes of Sinéad O’Connor: “Know who I am, that’s important to me / Let the branches wrap their arms around me.” It’s cosmic pop with an irresistible chorus.

The song was written by Amey, his words inspired by recent revelations of his family history, which stretches back to the small island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean, a place still best known as the final home of the exiled Napoleon Bonaparte. He says his mother and aunt were adopted, and didn’t know where their birth mother was from “until a few years ago in their 70s.”

“It’s strange for me to speak about a song that I’m singing,” the drummer says. “I’ve done it before on the first album, but it’s still quite a unique experience for me to be speaking about it. I see it very much as a duet and as a Wolf Alice song rather than a me thing.”

Wolf Alice is the kind of band where each of its four members are encouraged to stretch out creatively. “Everyone here writes music, amazing music,” Amey adds. “We will then get together and work out, ‘How is this a Wolf Alice statement?’ Everyone has written amazing parts on this record.” 

With their fourth record now complete, and with a full decade and a half behind them, Wolf Alice have been around long enough to hear of fans and newer acts calling them an influence. “People have grown up with us a little bit—which, one, makes you feel old, but, two, is really lovely to hear,” Rowsell says, noting the lasting impression favorite bands made on her. “I remember that feeling when I was younger and it doesn’t leave you.”

During some of the teen years of the band members, there was an annual event called the Underage Festival, held in Victoria Park, London, starting in 2007. It was open only to kids between 13 and 17, who were generally too young to attend shows at rock clubs. The show hosted a wildly eclectic lineup of rock, pop, indie and hip-hop—from rockers the Gallows and Horrors to singer-songwriter Patrick Wolf and the grime MC Dizzee Rascal.

“It was really bonkers,” Ellis remembers of the festival, which lasted until 2011. “And this thing lasted such a short period of time. That was really important to me.” 

“Whatever happens in that teenage period really crystallizes” your tastes and expectations in music, Ellis adds. “I found that to be the most powerful period of creative discovery. I’m always chasing that feeling half the time with music.”

Hours later, Wolf Alice is onstage at the Troubadour, the legendary SoCal nightclub and site of six decades of music history, from Elton John and the Eagles to Guns N’ Roses and Radiohead. Rowsell has arrived in a tiger-print leotard, white knee-high boots, glitter on her eyelids. “Bloom Baby Bloom” is painted onto Amey’s kick drum. 

The old club is filled with a cross-section of superfans, press, friends, and L.A. music industry people. The Wolf Alice set lasts more than an hour, and stretches across their catalog, as Rowsell purrs through the newest songs and then leaps into the crowd to rip into the punk rock of 2014’s “Moaning Lisa Smile” on the dancefloor.

The encore begins with “Thorns,” that new subversively alluring tune with pointed lyrics: “Maybe I’m a masochist / the sun goes down, the curtain lifts / and I sing a song.”

As she explained back at the hotel earlier, “Thorns” concerns the common practice of putting your most excruciating personal experiences into a song for the world to hear and dissect. “Like, why does one put themselves through that?” Rowsell asks, wondering about herself and others. Taking the song onstage only intensifies that idea, even as it frees up a singer in ways real life maybe can’t.

“I like shouting on stage. I don’t like shouting in real life,” Rowsell says happily. “It’s like how people tell you to go and scream into a pillow. When you’re a musician, you’re kind of allowed to do that on stage. The stage is your pillow, if you can let go a bit. Shouting is quite fun.” 

To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, click here.

That was at the Forum in Los Angeles, on Sept. 11, 2024, as Linkin Park performed for nearly 18,000 hometown fans, who seemed overjoyed to see them back in action, colliding metal riffs with hip-hop, electronics, and soaring melodies. They chanted “Linkin Park! Linkin Park! Linkin Park!” and shouted along with Armstrong to the band’s biggest hits and a new song, “The Emptiness Machine,” fully accepting this new singer as one of their own.

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Trading screams with rapper-bandleader Mike Shinoda’s calmer rhymes, Armstrong echoed the dramatic back-and-forth Linkin Park had trademarked with the late Chester Bennington, as she sang out: “I let you cut me open / Just to watch me bleed / Gave up who I am for who you wanted me to be / Don’t know why I’m hoping / For what I won’t receive!”

Looking back now, after several months of touring major venues around the world with Linkin Park, and the November release of their first album together, From Zero, she remembers her first live dates with the band as an exciting if disorienting blur. “It was just like too much thinking and too much adrenaline and just, ‘Okay, calm down, calm down,’” she says. “It was a lot of adjustments, a lot of things in your head just telling you ‘Do this, this, this, this, this.’ It’s all coming into play, all that practice for a year, and it all shows on the stage.” 

And, she adds, “It was really fun.”

“I remember giving all my energy. It was a really nice start, but we were also like, ‘Okay, let’s get out of L.A. Let’s get going.’”

Everything about touring with Linkin Park was on a massive scale—performing on a sprawling high-tech stage, flying to gigs, staying at nice hotels, with a large road crew to support the band’s every need—but she wasn’t exactly new to rock and roll. Emily had won many admirers among her musical peers from years fronting the L.A. alt-rock band Dead Sara, for her fiery vocal gifts that shifted easily from tender to explosive. 

It turned out one of those admirers was Shinoda.

Successfully replacing a lead singer in a rock band is always a kind of miracle (AC/DC and Alice in Chains among the few to pull it off). Shinoda and Linkin Park made a bold choice in Armstrong for that role—a powerful female voice rather than a safer and lesser Bennington clone—and it turned out to be a stroke of genius. From Zero (11 songs clocking in at 31 minutes, tight as always) was largely embraced by the band’s audience, got some rave reviews, and landed at No. 2 on the Billboard 200. The singles “The Emptiness Machine” and “Heavy Is the Crown” became immediate hits on streaming and rock and alternative radio.

The just-released and so-called “Deluxe Edition” of From Zero adds three additional songs, including the roaring single “Up From the Bottom,” already a popular addition to the setlist on the band’s world tour that will keep them busy into 2026.

To the public, the return of Linkin Park happened without warning, beyond a few scattered, hopeful comments since the trauma of Bennington’s suicide in 2017. Nothing was publicly known about Armstrong being involved.

It remained a secret through an intense year of recording and rehearsing with the singer, leading to an invitation-only performance a week before the Forum show for fan club members on a local soundstage, streamed live around the world. “It’s good to see you again,” Mike said to cheering fans, sounding awfully casual, given the high stakes of this reintroduction. That same day, Linkin Park revealed the imminent release of a new album and an arena tour.

“We were optimistic. We bet on ourselves, but it was all unknown basically,” guitarist Brad Delson says now of the comeback project with longtime band partners Shinoda, bassist Dave “Phoenix” Farrell, and turntablist Joe Hahn. “Committing to making the album, putting these shows up, was a real act of faith.”

As an original member of the band since the very early days, then called Xero, Brad remains a key creative force within Linkin Park. But during the band’s long hiatus, he decided he no longer wanted to tour. While his playing and influence continue in the studio and behind the scenes, the guitarist’s position onstage is filled by Alex Feder, “my touring doppelganger,” Delson calls him. 

There were other changes too, including the exit of founding drummer Rob Bourdon, replaced on From Zero by Colin Brittain.

“There were definitely moments where I was like, ‘Oh my God, I hope this works.’ My stomach was in knots,” says Shinoda, bearded and relaxed, hours before a show in North Carolina. Linkin Park’s first rehearsals for any tour were traditionally “rocky” and “a mess,” he says, as band members labored to reconnect with the songs. With Armstrong and Brittain now stepping in, he could only imagine things being more difficult, and admits, “It was really jarring.”

“Thankfully, we never had any moments where personality-wise it got rocky,” he adds. “That was really telling. As we rehearsed, the stress was high and everybody really knew there was so much on the line. Everybody wanted it to work so badly, so even when we were fumbling our way through songs for the first time or trying to figure out parts, everybody was really committed and patting each other on the back, and trying really hard.”

The roots of Linkin Park stretch back to suburban Agoura Hills, California, (just north of L.A. city limits) where Brad began working with Shinoda and then-singer Mark Wakefield in December 1996. As Xero, the new band had already developed a sound that Delson now recalls as “instantly unique and recognizable.”

The band emerged during the rise of nu-metal, and shared elements of hard rock, rapping, and turntable effects, but Linkin Park brought a new energy to this hybrid theory, minus the macho posturing of so many others. Delson says they crafted their blend toward “what felt natural to us, having grown up on all of those genres and wanting them to be intertwined, to combine them in a way that hadn’t been combined by others. That was the driving artistic resolve or raison d’être to even starting out.”

Linkin Park’s 2000 debut, named appropriately enough Hybrid Theory, was an explosive hit, with songs filled with rage and contemplation, frustration and release. It ultimately sold more than 12 million copies just in the U.S., and went multi-platinum across Europe. It was the beginning of a nearly two-decade winning streak, which only came to a stop with the death of their lead singer.

In 2018, Mike released his first solo album under his own name, with the self-explanatory title Post Traumatic. It was raw and emotional, and a sign of creative life from the Linkin Park leader, grappling with the loss of a friend and the unknown of what to do in the aftermath. That struggle could be heard in the hip-hop track “Over Again,” which recounted the experience of performing at a Hollywood Bowl tribute to Bennington three months after his death. 

Alternately raging and mournful, he raps over the understated track: “My body aches, head’s spinning, this is all wrong / I almost lost it in middle of a couple songs / And everybody that I talk to is like, ‘Wow, must be really hard to figure out what to do now’ / Well thank you genius, you think it’ll be a challenge? / Only my life’s work hanging in the fucking balance.”

As Linkin Park’s leader and most diligent band member, the least surprising revelation was that Shinoda would find a way back. But as he released his solo album, that still seemed far away. That year, he told the Los Angeles Times, “My gut is that I want it to work out. I’ll be looking for ways for it to work out.”

The following year is when work toward rebirthing Linkin Park began. Armstrong first came to Shinoda’s studio in 2019 to co-write and record. An invitation to officially join the band was still years away. Other voices and players also came and went.

The process was careful and deliberate. Figuring out this puzzle of grief and expectation would take time. As a group that began with two singers, Linkin Park could have continued with just Shinoda at the mic, or recruited multiple vocalists, or leaned on backup singers. Suggestions of a holographic singing partner were quickly shot down. COVID also interrupted things. 

“With Chester, I was used to working with someone who I could give any vocal idea to and he would be able to handle just about anything,” Shinoda says. 

Finding that again was a challenge. “Every week I’d do a few sessions with different singers, different writers, and I’d go to that place: ‘Oh, I have this idea. Can you sing this?’ They’d sing it, and I’d be like, ‘Ah, hmm, interesting’—not ‘Wow, insane.’ Then I met Emily and I did that process with her and I was like, ‘Oh, we’re back to almost unlimited.’ She doesn’t sound like Chester; she sounds like Emily. But I won’t run out of things to try because she can just do it all.”

Linkin Park’s final album with Bennington was the pop-oriented One More Light, which hit No. 1 in the U.S. and the Top 10 around the world, amid, however, lukewarm reviews. Shinoda says that album was the third in a diverse trio of releases that shifted gears dramatically, and challenged listeners about what a Linkin Park album should sound like. The previous album, 2014’s The Hunting Party, was their heaviest ever, with slabs of punk and metal guitar.

In that, Linkin Park were following a lesson learned from working with producer Rick Rubin, starting with 2007’s Minutes to Midnight. 

“There’s no rules,” Delson recalls of Rubin’s message. “You don’t have to do things the way you did them before. You don’t have to do things the way other people do things. You get to choose.”

Regardless, seven years after going silent, Linkin Park resurrected itself with a return to certain fundamentals from the band’s sound.

“After Chester passed and we went through all of the different feelings and phases,” Shinoda explains. “Naturally we came back to the core of: ‘Okay, no bullshit, who is this band? Who are we?’ And you get a different answer when you look at things that way.”

Several songs were far along before the band settled on multi-instrumentalist Brittain behind the drums, and Armstrong on vocals. The new singer was a known talent but no hits beyond the psychedelic, grungy “Weatherman” from Dead Sara’s 2012 self-titled debut album.

Like most rock acts playing clubs and small theaters on the road, Dead Sara was a classic guerrilla operation, usually touring by van from city to city, living out of a suitcase. Dead Sara’s Instagram page still includes the ironic boast: “World’s greatest opening band.” Armstrong wasn’t yet a famous name to the masses, but anyone who witnessed her perform live—with her band or at a series of L.A., all-star tribute shows to Fleetwood Mac and Tom Petty—knew her as an exceptionally powerful vocalist, from a whisper to a scream.

“In her own way, Emily has that vocal and emotional range where it can be the scariest, heaviest thing or obviously kind of beautiful and tender,” says Brad. She brings a sound and personality that the guitarist says naturally fits with the band’s DNA.

Delson had last worked on a Linkin Park project in 2023, completing a song begun during the One More Light sessions, with vocals by Bennington, to close the retrospective Papercuts (Singles Collection 2000–2023). While Shinoda, Phoenix, and Hahn had begun working on music for a potential new Linkin Park project in 2019, Delson says the bulk of his work on From Zero happened the first six months of 2024. “I was going to Mike’s house almost every day for months last year,” he says.

“And once we had a deadline, we made this bold decision as a group to build the launch show, to build the stage, to book arenas, to book stadiums—all before anyone had heard a lick of music. So it was a very risky thing to do. And we had incredible deadlines that all could have gone awry. We were miraculously able to keep Emily’s identity a secret, which built even more tension into the launch.”

During Armstrong’s recording sessions and rehearsals for the tour, she saw just how tight Linkin Park was as a live playing unit. “I had to step up big time,” she says. “It’s like all of a sudden you’re with the professionals that have been doing it and have huge hits and it’s like, ‘Okay, wow, I have to become the best version of myself all the time.’ Just to be there in their presence, I was learning so much.”

As she talks, sitting on her hotel balcony ahead of the night’s show, the blonde singer is relaxed in sunglasses and a coffee-colored athletic jersey. “It was very challenging at times and it still is, but I’ve gotten to a place where I feel like I can sink my teeth into it very well,” she says. She notes the support she immediately felt from audiences. “I’d only heard stories from the band. Even though they described to me just how protective and supportive they are, it’s completely different when you see it in real life and you feel it. It’s like, ‘Oh shit, this is like family.’ You want to do everything you possibly can to not fuck it up, just for them.”

As expected, those first weeks after she was introduced as the new singer of Linkin Park, it was a whirlwind for all of them, and a mix of excitement and worry. Bassist Phoenix remembers thinking, “If it’s not up to par, everybody’s gonna see you with your pants down.” 

Even amid the euphoria they felt from audiences, there was also pushback as their new singer came under the public microscope. There was the usual chattering of obsessive fans online debating Emily vs. Chester, and whether the band should have continued at all. Armstrong was criticized for attending an early court hearing in 2020 in support of actor Danny Masterson, who three years later was convicted of three counts of rape. She posted on Instagram: “I misjudged him. I have never spoken with him since.”

There were also heated negative comments about the reunion from one of Bennington’s adult sons, who was frequently quoted in the media.

“We knew it would be something,” says Shinoda with a nod. “It’s always something you can’t predict when you put out something new, or do something you know people are going to talk about … They’re going to come up with something to argue about that’s going to be surprising. And some of those things happened, and we were just like, ‘Oh, okay. So this is what it is.’”

The band leader says he suspects misogyny in play from certain male followers who object to a woman stepping into that role. 

“That’s such a chickenshit thing to do,” Mike adds. “We’ve got a new woman who’s more than capable. She’s an absolute beast. She’s so ready for this moment. It’s a little bit unfair that [she and Brittain] have to deal with any kind of scrutiny or whatever, but it also comes with the territory.”

A year ago, Emily was mostly unknown to the wider public. Now immersed in the larger world of Linkin Park, she remains the artist she was in Dead Sara, she says. “I’m that same person,” she explains. “There’s been so much added, so much more opportunity, so many things that I wanted to do that I’m now able to do. So I’ve only evolved, become better at what I thought I was capable of doing.”

At the same time, she remains connected to Dead Sara, established in 2005. Various members of Linkin Park have had other meaningful projects over the years, and Emily’s band will likely reconvene before it’s time to make the next Linkin Park record.

“I never went anywhere,” she says. “Those are my friends and we were in the studio the other day just kicking around some ideas and stuff. Nothing is set—like, no plans. They understand.”

Until then, Linkin Park are reconnecting with fans around the globe. As fans sing along to the newest songs—“Emptiness Machine,” “Heavy Is the Crown,” and now “Up From the Bottom”—longtime band members are reliving a familiar sensation they first knew in 2000. 

“In music or in anything creative, you’re not guaranteed anything. This past year in that regard has been really, really special,” says Phoenix with a smile. “Then for it to work a second time, it feels weirdly like cheating. Like, you’re not supposed to win the lottery twice.”

To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, click here.

Jelly laughs heartily — first because it’s funny, second because he does everything heartily, and third because he knows that getting to be the punchline of a famous comedian’s joke is a sign of truly having made it.

“My whole life I was like ‘Man, if I was ever relevant enough to be the butt end of a joke!’ I love Larry the Cable Guy. Our whole family used to huddle around the TV and watch the Blue Collar Comedy tapes, you know what I’m sayin’? That’s awesome.”

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Larry the Cable Guy isn’t exactly getting in on the ground floor. Examples of Jelly Roll’s ascendancy have proliferated since his career began blowing up five years ago with his song “Save Me.” It’s barely an exaggeration to say that the number of doors that have subsequently opened, and keep opening, for him have created a butterfly effect of fame. 

Let us count the ways. His latest album, Beautifully Broken, debuted at No. 1. He performed “Liar” and “Winning Streak” on the inaugural installment of Saturday Night Live’s 50th season. He has played Madison Square Garden, appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! several times, and sung at the Grand Ole Opry (ditto). He was Artist in Residence for American Idol’s 23rd season. He placed a song in an episode of Fire Country and has performed or recorded with Willie Nelson, Wiz Khalifa, Lainey Wilson, MGK, Craig Morgan, Brantley Gilbert, Struggle Jennings, and the Castellows. 

His duet with Brandon Lake, “Hard Fought Hallelujah,” was number one on Billboard’s Hot Christian Songs chart for months. He has logged quality time with Dolly Parton. Last October, at Sharon Osbourne’s request, he sang “Mama, I’m Coming Home” for Ozzy Osbourne’s induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Two months earlier, he’d made a babyface cameo at WWE’s SummerSlam, chokeslamming Austin Theory and whacking Grayson Waller with a chair. He sang “God Bless America” in April at Wrestlemania 41. 

And he was a guest of honor at this year’s World Literacy Summit in Oxford — yes, that Oxford, the original one, in England. Not bad for someone who never graduated from high school and was 23 — and in jail — when he got his G.E.D.

The story of how Jelly (the nickname his mother gave him as a tyke) went from juvenile delinquency to young-adult delinquency to never wanting to set foot in a prison again is well known: There he was in the gray-bar hotel, a 23-year old with a face full of tattoos, doing time for possession of cocaine with intent to distribute and no prospects to speak of, when someone informed him that he’d become the father of a bouncing baby girl. The news, he has said, affected him the way that meeting Jesus on the Damascus Road affected Saul of Tarsus. His life hasn’t been the same since.

Those who want the emotional as opposed to the police-blotter details need only consult Jelly’s music. They’re all there in the raucous hip-hop singles, mixtapes, EPs, and albums that he released from 2005 to 2020 (“I can’t even hear if the skill set was good or bad,” he says, “because I’m just listening to sheer desperation”), and they’re there in the brawny country-rock that he’s currently making and that’s currently making him. The song titles alone tell the story. The devil-on-his-shoulder “Overdose,” “Backslide,” “Behind Bars,” and “Dancing with the Devil” are about what you’d guess, as are the angel-on-his-other-shoulder “Born Again,” “Love the Heartless,” “Sunday Morning” (not the Velvet Underground’s), and “Hungover in a Church Pew.” 

Let no one say that Jelly doesn’t leave it all on the floor.

It’s easy to focus on his evolution into a Role Model Who’s an Inspiration to Us All. He has, after all, come a long way. In a world — popular music — where people who go a long way often do so in the opposite direction, he’s an especially conspicuous exception. But that angle risks glossing over the depths to which he’d sunk and how difficult and fitful some of his progress has been.

“I can tell you,” he says, “that prison is everything they say it is. It’s violent. It’s tense. You do long enough in one of those places and you’re going to see and hear horrible things. I used to hear people go from one facility to the next, and they would talk about it like it was a mall. 

They’d be like ‘Yo! You shoulda seen the food down at Southwest!’ And we’re like ‘Dude, we’re in jail! This sucks! This is horrible! This is not a mall, dawg!’ We’re comparing jails! People are getting raped here daily, you know what I mean?”

Most people probably don’t know what it’s like to be in an environment in which rape is common. They also probably don’t know what it’s like to be 6’1” and weigh 550 lbs., the weight that Jelly had ballooned to just as fame began heading his way. Before he knew it, his bulk had become as much of an extra-musical talking point as his inked-up visage. 

These days, he’s tipping the scales at around 360 with an ultimate goal of 250 because, he says, it’s at that weight that it becomes possible to partake in fun activities such as skydiving and riding a rollercoaster. To that end, he’s counting calories, “only eating twice a day now with two snacks,” doing contrast therapy, playing lots of basketball, and walking three or four daily miles. 

He has tried losing weight before, like the time seven-or-so years ago that he was diagnosed with atrial fibrillation. “They couldn’t get my heart back in rhythm,” he recalls. “So they had to do what they call a cardiovert, which is where they put you to sleep and try to shock you back straight. They tried twice and couldn’t get it done. They were going to try one more time the next day, or I was going to have to start taking medicine and living with it. It was a scary moment.” So scary that he crash dieted and walked five miles each morning, going from over 400 lbs. to 320 in three months. Eventually, though, with imminent death no longer a threat, he began putting the weight back on. “I didn’t take the time to build a proper relationship with food,” he says, “or to deal with my food addiction.” 

In a recent interview on The Pivot Podcast with the former NFL-ers Fred Taylor, Ryan Clark, and Channing Crowder, he pointed out that with his current downsizing he has also experienced a leveling out of his hormones, implying none too subtly that the carnal aspects of his nine-year marriage to the former “high-end escort” and current Dumb Blonde Podcast hostess Bunnie XO are on the upswing. “I’m walking around the house like a pouncing tiger,” he joked. “I used to walk around looking like Eeyore. Now I’m looking like Tigger!”   

Additionally, he admitted that not that long ago — eight years to be precise — he and Bunnie were “lunatics.” “We were, like, doing drugs and poppin’ ’em all the time,” he said. “It was crazy, nuts, you know what I mean? Now, we’re both kind of embarrassed a little bit to talk about it.” And, he suspects, matters could’ve turned out worse — like if wealth and fame had come to him when he was still in his 20s instead of when, in what he calls “God’s timing,” they did.

“I had none of the tools to even try to fight that stuff at 26,” he admits. “So now, whenever I’m talking to friends of mine who are rock dudes who have been through it all, I’m like ‘Dude, don’t be so hard on yourself. You were 23 years old, and the world was at your fingertips. You didn’t do anything that most people wouldn’t have done at 23.’” 

Age and custodial parenthood (of Jelly’s daughter) inspired the adult DeFords to get their lives together and set out on the path that they’re famous for being on today, distancing themselves one step at a time from the potential tabloid fodder that they used to be.

The next rung on Jelly Roll’s ladder of redemption, he hopes, will be to receive an official pardon this coming December from Tennessee’s governor Bill Lee. If he does, everything from buying and insuring a home to traveling abroad will become as easy for him as it is for people who’ve kept their noses clean. “I don’t look great on paper, man,” he says. “I’m a good guy, but from ’99 to 2009, if you read about me, you’d think I was a really shit human. And that’s because it was true at the time.” 

He doesn’t want or expect special treatment and wishes that the press hadn’t made his pardon process public. “I just want to be respectful of the due process,” he says. “I’m not a victim here. I’m not screaming, ‘Oh, I deserve this! I demand this!’ But what they have requested of a man to prove that he has changed his life to ask for a pardon — I think that I have met the criteria.”

The juvenile-detention-center inhabitants that Jelly visits when the cameras aren’t on him would most likely agree. He has learned, for example, not to try to scare them straight or pontificate. “We went and spoke at a few of them,” he explains, “but I realized that that just still came off like Super Me-ish, like ‘Hey, I’m a big celebrity! Let me tell you about me and how you can be like me if you work hard.’ You do that enough, and you go ‘Man, that’s not the impact I’m trying to have on these kids.’”

He prefers instead genuine human interaction. “These kids need to be loved on, man. These kids need us to go in there and shoot hoops with them for an hour or two and get to know them and ask them about their granny and where they grew up, how they ended up in here, you know what I mean? I try to sit down and play cards with them and see how they work a card table, how they talk and how they’re thinking.”

Some doors still remained closed to him, such as the one between him and admittance into the I’ve-Met-Bob-Dylan Club.

“I’d love to meet Dylan,” he says. “I hope he reads this or somebody tells him how bad I want to meet him and he cares.” 

He sort of almost met Dylan once. Team Bob had given him tickets to a show in Austin (“the coolest show I’d ever seen, I was blown away”), and he thought maybe, just maybe, he could squeeze a meet and greet out of the deal. 

“I asked someone on his team, ‘Hey, is there any chance I’m gonna meet him?’ And they were so confidently honest when they said ‘No.’” He laughs heartily again. “If there’s one thing I like as much as a ‘yes,’ it’s a fast ‘no.’ And, man, that was an expressive ‘no’!” 

More hearty laughter. What’s one setback, after all, given the roll (no pun intended) that he’s on? So he hasn’t met the Complete Unknown. At least he’s met one of his other five favorite singer-songwriters: James Taylor. “I was so nervous about embarrassing myself, I just told him ‘Thank you for your music. You’re the reason I write songs. I’d be remiss if I didn’t tell you how much your music’s done for me and my family. Thank you.’ And I, like, awkwardly probably, just ran out of the room because I was like ‘I can only fuck this up from here.’”

Two of his five heroes that he’ll never meet for sure, this side of eternity anyway, are Bob Marley and Jim Croce. But he still has a shot at Bob Seger, the only performer on his musical Mount Rushmore that he sounds much like. Both Jelly and Seger have big soulful voices that if voices were food would be steaks, cooked medium rare. And, the categorization of Jelly Roll’s music as country notwithstanding (a label that has as much to do with his Southern accent as it does with anything else), they’re both basically built for rock and roll. 

So it’s not surprising that while Jelly hasn’t yet performed any Dylan, Croce, Taylor, or Marley songs, he has covered Seger. “Against the Wind,” “Turn the Page,” and “Hollywood Nights” have so far been one-offs, but he’s done “Old Time Rock and Roll” three times. One hopes that “Mainstreet,” “Night Moves,” and “2+2=?” aren’t far behind.

Maybe because his life seems too good to be true, Jelly gets asked a lot about his “greatest fear.” Does he ever catch himself thinking that the spell cast by his fairy godmother might wear off some night when the clock strikes 12? In short, yes: He consistently identifies what he dreads most as “losing it all.”

“I had this quote I would say all the time: ‘You can’t scare me with “going back to the bottom.” I’ve been there my whole life.’ It was like a mantra I lived by. But the older you get, the more you’re like, ‘God, just whatever you can do—whatever I have to do to work hard enough to not ever go back to that place’—you know what I mean? Now more than ever, I don’t want to go back to that. I’ve got so much love in my life. I’ve got so much grace in my life. I have so much gratitude in my life. I don’t want to lose that. I didn’t have any of that when I was the other person.”

He has another fear too: following up Beautifully Broken’s chart-topping, platinum success. He has been so busy since that album’s release last October that he has only written three new songs. 

“But I’m going to write in July,” he says. “I’m starting to get anxious, starting to get short tempered, all the stuff that comes whenever I need to go write.” 

“I’m starting,” he adds, “to get the taste of blood in my mouth again.”

To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, click here.

“My life is complete,” she says, when Joe’s Pizza requests her picture for their wall. She steps outside to “stamp” a guy’s white T-shirt with a slice, her signature blonde topknot glowing against the blue-dusk sky.

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It’s all this and more that makes Bakos one of the most powerful women in the world of dance music today. BLOND:ISH built momentum through prolific releases and remixes, eventually reaching Bakos’ biggest goal, which was, in her own words: “Can I play for 10,000 people?” In the last couple of years she has appeared at Lollapalooza in Argentina, Brazil, and Chile, as well as EDC Las Vegas and Orlando, III Points Festival, and Coachella. She’s played on bills alongside Adriatique and even Madonna. Today, she’s a fine-tuned producer and in-demand remixer with reworks for Depeche Mode, Maya Jane Coles, and Born Dirty & Diplo to her credit. This year, her tour boasts stops at Outside Lands, Tomorrowland, Electric Forest, and, perhaps most significantly, her residency at Ibiza’s landmark Pacha nightclub—the first-ever female headlining resident in over 50 years. 

BLOND:ISH first caught my attention because of the great name. The more I learned about BLOND:ISH, the more my opinion elevated. She single-mindedly leveled up in the male-dominated electronic music industry through sheer willpower coupled with on-point studio skills and thoughtfully curated DJ sets that put her and her audience on the same wavelength. 

And here was an artist who didn’t just pay lip service to sustainability but launched a non-profit, Bye Bye Plastic, to help eliminate single-use plastics in the music industry. When she released her second album, Never Walk Alone earlier this year on eco-friendly BioVinyl and packaged in recyclable and/or compostable materials, I was keen to spotlight it.

BLOND:ISH not only schooled me on the benefits of BioVinyl and the non-discernable drawbacks in audio or physical quality, but also provided simple guidelines in Bye Bye Plastic’s Eco-Rider for her DJ colleagues to start moving toward a plastic-free DJ booth. Of this first step she said, “It’s a low lift, but at the same time, it gives everyone a taste of what it takes, and how to approach things with more circular thinking.” She also outlined guidelines for partygoers, encouraging them to exercise their online power, encouraging promoters to employ sustainable practice. “Make requests for things that matter to you,” she said. “There is power in numbers.”

Today, her hair is tucked behind her right ear, where it curls slightly under her jaw, signature darker roots contrasting with her “blondish” outgrowth. Her profile is all I see—and that’s all I will see for the next hour, as I speak to Viv from her home in Miami. 

Quickly, I realize this is a different Viv, not the public, performative BLOND:ISH. This is the woman who is leaving for EDC Korea in a few days and the fun video from last September feels far different from this person who seems impatient and preoccupied.

If there was any misconception that she was larger than life, she is now undeniably human. She says that she “kind of got stuck [in Miami] during COVID,” one of America’s indisputably hottest (in every sense) cities. She was staying with friends, kind of “kidnapped” on a “compound with, like, three houses.” It was amazing, she tells me, of the “beautiful community” that grew from initial, friendly entrapment. “It was awesome,” she says, eventually admitting that it was also somewhat “lawless.”

This, in essence, describes the unique and secular world of the dance music community. The music has always attracted outsiders: those who are looking beyond the mainstream, who feel they didn’t fit in, who have deeper sensitivity, they found their people on the dancefloor. There, syncopated with the heartbeat of the drum machines, they connected on a cellular level with others who shared their thoughts and feelings, and perhaps the thrill of existing outside of societal convention, which, at times, might have verged on illegality—or full-blown criminal behavior—all for the love of the music. Once you make that connection on the dancefloor, be it in a sanctioned club or an unsanctioned warehouse, you are forever a part of that community, worshipping at the church established by the DJ. 

While on the road, Bakos has some goals. “I have two different shows,” she says. “I have my headline shows where I’m playing for other promoters, and I don’t really have control about the entire experience. I really try to make eye contact, but you can’t make eye contact with everyone at the show. You can do the front row or certain moments. I can talk to people in my DMs after the shows, give that personal acknowledgement and attention. At my Abracadabra shows, I’ll stand at the front of the door, and I’ll hug every single person that comes through that door.

“It’s a constant experiment and iteration, because I haven’t figured out how to affect every single person at the party yet,” she says. Her ethos includes providing people with tools to live their best life. “[But] I feel like those things added up over time can affect the human race in a positive way, at least that’s my goal. And I’m having fun doing it.”

A big part of Bakos’ plan is the “ecosystem” she’s built around her Abracadabra brand that encompasses events, record label, and shop, for which she is the figurehead. “We registered Abracadabra as a church in the U.S. because we want to share that our faith is magic,” she says. Bakos is crafting the church’s framework with the help of AI technology.

Which begs the question: What’s the prompt you give ChatGPT so it can build you a church?

“[ChatGPT] basically scraped the whole entire internet for anything I’ve ever said in my interviews, all the people I follow on YouTube, and put it in its brain,” Bakos says. “I’ve been working on it for months. I’m literally adding to it every day. You start a project in ChatGPT Plus, put it in memory, then say, ‘I want to build out the Abracadabra church, the ecosystem,’ and you keep adding all your ethos into that. The math of our ecosystem is 1 plus 1 equals 11. Everything is energy.”

Where the word “church” can sometimes have its own set of negative connotations, Bakos seems to base hers on her path of personal growth, steeped in mindfulness and positivity.

“I went on introspective trips where you learn a lot, not only about the human race, but also about yourself,” says Bakos. “When I started meditating, doing a lot of breath work, I realized my journey with music is much more than an ego thing. I’m obsessed with learning. I’m obsessed with music. How can my experience turn into value for my audience through my music?”

Bakos incorporates daily rituals: sunrise and sunset viewings, daily meditation—particularly an abundance practice (“it’s my mantra, it changed my life”)—and tai chi. She mentions Chiva-Som, the holistic health and wellness resort in Thailand where, she says, “You rehabilitate and become superhuman.”

This carries into her diet. Bakos—who lives with her partner Liana (who helps run Abracadabra) and their infant son—follows a high-protein, low-carb, gluten-free diet.

Before each DJ set, Bakos performs a 5-minute qigong ritual to generate an energy field around her. “I’m always trying to have optimal focus, attention, and energy for everyone else, because it’s all I talk about,” she explains. “That’s all people see from me and from my shows, is my energy, so I need to keep my energy at top form.”

Abracadabra events mirror this. “Everything is there for your discovery,” Bakos says. “On the surface, it’s a party. If you want to go deeper, you can. I found that’s the best way to approach everything because otherwise people will judge you, or they might not pay attention. I want to approach it in that familiar way, so people discover it like kids. Then they’re on their own journey.” 

This insight—people respond better to discovery than preaching—was crystallized through her work with Bye Bye Plastic. “Everyone has their own relationship to the plastic issue,” she says. “Some people could care less; some people are really focused on it. When we went through the process of, ‘how do we make festivals plastic free,’ and the different people we needed to deal with, that’s where I understood you can’t change human behavior by telling them facts.”

Bakos wants to make sure we talk about her high-profile residency at Pacha which starts May 21. But she won’t reveal any plans other than telling me her team will integrate into the crowd offering bracelets, a trick she picked up from Swifties, and working with mentalists who roam the room levitating coins.

“If I tell you everything, it’s not really discovery,” she says. “We’re here to show you how you can create your own magic.”

Bakos explains the 432 Hz to 532 Hz frequency range is what her audience responds to most favorably. When I ask how she came up with those numbers, she talks about sound meditation, experimenting with mushrooms, going to Tulum, being into Eastern practices, hearing more notes in the scale, more detail in sounds.

“I’m just obsessed with sound,” she continues. “My journey around sound and music brings me to all these experiences.

“Everything is energy.”

Bakos says she transfers this energy to her audience. But as her profile grows and her time becomes limited, she channeled the energy into Never Walk Alone.

“Everything is here, but not everyone has that highway or channel open to them,” she says. “Life is a video game. You acquire tools along the way so that you can deal with anything. Never Walk Alone is that tool.”

Moby was an early follower. He stumbled upon an early BLOND:ISH production on Beatport and says he “fell in love with it, which is saying something as there are so many dance tracks being released every second of the day, it’s unbelievably hard to create something that stands out.”

He invited Bakos to remake any song from his catalog. She chose “Natural Blues.” “I feel ‘Natural Blues’ is a song that all ages would still love. It’s this cross generational song that I wanted to redo,” Bakos says.

Moby co-produced the remake (which releases May 30 via Defected) with Bakos and her friend Kiko. Says Moby, “One of my favorite things about the world of remixing is when they send me their new version, it’s like Christmas morning, and I get to hear how someone has used their creativity on a piece of my music.

“What really struck me was how masterfully she melded the emotion and melodic qualities of the original with cutting edge production that puts it firmly on dance floors in 2025.”

Bakos is no stranger to high-profile reimaginings and remixes. She collaborated with Madonna and remixed Taylor Swift’s “Fortnight” (feat. Post Malone), giving it a euphoric twist. “Her music is so far away from mine,” she says of Swift. “I’m inspired by her as an artist more than her music. The irony is that my brand is about positivity and energy and happiness, and then I get this sad song to remix. I was like, ‘How do I turn this into a ‘crying in the club’ type of song? It was a fun challenge.”

Bakos is building an “Abracadabra marketplace empire” on TikTok, an extension of Abracadabra. Abracadabra even has its own currency—$ISH—which you can earn by doing things like working on yourself or dancing at Abracadabra parties. These tokens unlock discounts and rewards across the ecosystem—from the church to the label to the shop. 

“Earning tokens turns into energy for the ecosystem,” she says. 

To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, click here.

“Tonight is very, very special because it marks the end of a chapter for us as a unit, and I feel really blessed that I get to share tonight with you guys.” Darkness surrounds him, save for an ethereal light his body seems to emit, a reflection of the spotlight shining down from the batten above. Keyboardist Jon George applauds. Drummer James Hunt throws up prayer hands. The crowd’s reaction is a mixture of applause and boos. “This is an iconic venue and I feel really privileged to get to play here,” he continues. “It feels like a big honor. Thank you so much.” The spotlights go out and blackness engulfs the stage, marking the end of the show.

It’s a goodbye, and it sounds final.

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Rumors that the world’s biggest live electronic band was breaking up unfurled the next day. “rufus du sol breaking up can’t be real… stop this right now,” read a post on (then) Twitter. “I would rather sit naked on a hot grill than live in a world without Rüfüs Du Sol,” read another. Blurry cell phone videos of Lindqvist’s speech scattered all over social media. 

RÜFÜS DU SOL wasn’t announcing their breakup that night at the Hollywood Bowl. Or, maybe they were. The truth stays with them, and they don’t divulge personal struggles. What Lindqvist was saying, at the very least, was that they were moving apart, geographically. 

The point is, they’re still together. But that doesn’t mean that their moves to opposite sides of the country didn’t create more than logistical obstacles.

If you listen to “Standing at the Gates,” the 13th track off of their latest album, Inhale/Exhale, you might not guess the song is about Lindqvist’s aunt dying of cancer. But the hints are there.

She’s standing at the gates / With lonely eyes / In the end, she hesitates / Just waiting / And whatever time it takes / I’ll be by her side / As the sunlight fades away / Just waiting

As Lindqvist tells it, she was given three months to live, but she ended up living three years. “My family would get together and sit with her for a lot of those three years,” he tells me over a video conference call from his home in San Diego, where he’s surrounded by a couple of keyboards, a piano, and an overhead microphone. “I just found that the waiting room of transitioning between someone being there and being gone really interesting and beautiful.”

While the song is a metaphor for the transition between life and death, it also speaks to the challenges the record-breaking Australian musicians have faced over the last 15 years.

Two years earlier, the band spent a couple of months in the Joshua Tree desert to record, a sacred place for them thanks to a creative pilgrimage they took there after moving to Los Angeles; the place where they changed their name over a trademark issue from simply RÜFÜS to RÜFÜS DU SOL.

COVID had hit and the world was on lockdown. At this point, Lindqvist, George, and Hunt had been playing together for 10 years. They were exhausted from spending a year and a half touring to support their 2018 album, Solace. 

Like many bands, lots of alcohol was consumed (RÜFÜS even launching a line of hard kombucha), resentment started to build, and many fights were had over the years.

“I think that it was clear that this life wasn’t sustainable, and it was showing itself,” says George, who’s also on the call, just back from St. Bart’s and now in Miami, where he and Hunt have been living since that controversial Hollywood Bowl show more than two years ago. George is wearing a white T-shirt, a silver chain around his neck, occasionally puffing on a vape. 

“The behavior wasn’t representing who I want to be. That just all came to a head at the same time for me personally, whilst we were trying to figure out what was going wrong.”

The pandemic forced the world to a halt. And it was no different for Lindqvist, George, and Hunt. 

“I think that any big shift that we’ve consciously taken as a unit has been in those moments when we’ve been challenged the most,” Lindqvist says. “So anytime there’s a big moment of change for us, there’s been growing pains.”

At Joshua Tree, the group had tough conversations and adhered to a strict daily routine including group meditation and songwriting. The result of their cathartic lockdown time together came twofold: the beautiful 45-minute concert film, RÜFÜS DU SOL: Live from Joshua Tree—shot by George’s younger brother and the band’s creative director, Alex, who goes by Katzki—which at the time of this writing, has amassed 30 million views. The other was the band’s fourth album, Surrender, which earned three Grammy nominations, winning for Best Dance/Electronic Recording for the single, “Alive.” 

Hunt is calling from St. Martin, where he’s taking a break before rehearsals for their 2025 world tour that will span more than 40 cities, beginning March 12 in Guadalajara, Mexico and ending Nov. 29 in Auckland, New Zealand. Since presales began last October, it’s become the biggest single-artist electronic music tour on sale of all time. They sold more than half a million tickets the first day, with over 30 stadiums sold out in nine countries.

“Right now, the thing we are very focused on and excited by and inspired by is getting back into the rehearsal space,” says Hunt. “…figuring out how to express this album in the best way possible for the live show. The live show and making music in the studio are quite separate ecosystems. On a granular level, we divvy up the parts, figure out who’s going to play what, and how best to translate certain moments.” 

Lindqvist tells me they had their doubts about how living so far apart would affect their ability to make a new album. But it’s proven to have an incredibly positive effect on the band. 

“Living separately has given us the appreciation of each other as a unit, like the sum of our parts,” he says. “Having done this for a while now, we’ve changed some of our habits and practices to healthier ones.”

Hunt and Lindqvist have known each other since their days at Saint Ignatius’ College, Riverview, a Jesuit boarding school in their hometown of Sydney, Australia. Knowing what a great musician Lindqvist was, George—who was majoring in audio engineering—recruited him for a school project. The two recorded an EP together and enjoyed it so much, they started jamming. 

Hunt, who had known Lindqvist since he was 13, studied aerospace engineering in school before dropping out and bumming around Sydney, playing drums in a few bands. “I remember that period after school, and I was lost,” he says. “I was like, what am I doing? I had heard this EP, which is the first collection of songs that Ty and Jon had made, and I loved it. I’d been listening to a lot of Caribou at that time, and it resonated, a really creative blend of electronic and psychedelia.” 

Two days later, Lindqvist asked him to join the band. 

In the years they’ve been together, they have released five albums, headlined Coachella and Red Rocks, won four Aria Awards, and amassed more than 2.9 billion streams. Perhaps most importantly, the group has redefined their genre with a blend of atmospheric electronica and simple yet emotionally weighted lyrics. Their intricate concert performances—a stunning mix of choreographed lighting, supplemental playback parts, and live instrumentation—are more than large-scale dance club shows; they are transformational, even spiritual events. RÜFÜS DU SOL’s fanbase is loyal and ever-growing; an ode to how accessible the band has made the music, with a fan connection that’s rare in the genre. There’s a feeling of transcendence to both the band and its music, an open-armed, let-me-hug-you vulnerability that is welcoming and comforting; with lyrics and melodies that inspire connection on the dancefloor, and introspection through a pair of headphones alone at home.

Because they spend less time together now and have lives outside of the group, it’s forced them to create another way of songwriting and recording. For Inhale/Exhale, which was released on October 11, 2024, the group decided on a two-week-on, eight-week-off schedule over an 18-month period, meeting up in various locations such as Austin, the Balearic Islands in Spain, and their former home of Los Angeles. 

The new process helped them develop a stronger bond with each other, opening up creative possibilities while allowing more balance in their lives. 

“I really enjoyed how we wrote this recent record,” says Lindqvist. “It feels really nice to know that we can live separately and still make a body of work that we’re proud of.”

George concurs. 

“I would like to write like this in the future,” he says. “This creates some more time for us to linger or to tinker away on certain aspects of it [the album] whilst we’re separated. I personally like being able to have some freedom.”

Some of those healthier practices Lindqvist alluded to include group therapy, which they’ve been doing for a couple of years now.  

“It’s allowed us to be able to just talk about anything and allows our time in the studio to be a little more clean,” he says. “There’s less resentment and tension in the studio because we have a safe space to address those things.”

Linqvist has been spending his downtime at home with his family. George and Hunt play padel—a cross between tennis and squash—together. Hunt also started boxing. “We’re all working out in our own ways,” he says.

Lindqvist is excited about what’s to come. 

“This is the first album that we haven’t toured as we released the record, so people have gotten to live with it for a bit,” he says. “So I’m really excited for the next year because I feel like people are going to see and experience a new side of the record. For 15 years we’ve been working on this thing; it’s our blood, sweat, and tears. It is a really special thing that we’ve built, and when we play the shows and we see the effect that some of the songs have on people, it’d be a shame to throw it away.” 

To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, click here.

It’s oddly coincidental that Gonzalez had this interaction at the Chateau, the same locale that author and artist Eve Babitz chronicled so vividly in her writings. Babitz’s visceral narrative which evokes sharply drawn imagery is strikingly similar to Gonzalez painting tangible scenes with his music and tantalizing, whispered lyrics. I mention this connection to Gonzalez and, unfamiliar with Babitz, he makes a note of her name in his phone so he can pick up her books later. 

We’re practically matching in our black leather jackets. In fact, we’re black-clad from top to toe, a Cigarettes After Sex requisite I discovered when I saw the group perform in 2017, at the time of their eponymous debut album. The audience was dressed up in black leather, lace, and heels, their appearance an accompaniment to the seductive vibe of the music. “It’s one of my favorite things to see,” Gonzalez admits. “It feels cultish—a sweet cult.”

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It is the ideal place, and time, to speak to Gonzalez as he is in the bloom of new love. Considering how many relationships have been soundtracked by Cigarettes After Sex’s limerence-steeped and sexually explicit music, it’s fun to have its creator in the same position as his fans.

“If I fall in love, it’s a distinct feeling, this crazy dopamine rush,” Gonzalez says. “You get super high just thinking of somebody. The person I’m with now, it all happened so fast. Before, there was always [sexual] intimacy, then I would fall in love. But this is the first person I fell in love with just by talking and I hadn’t even met her yet. It was totally different. There aren’t the boundaries I’ve had before with other people. She’s very spontaneous and independent. I’ve dated other people where they were very needy, and I wanted to help them. I tried too hard and messed things up. The current one feels like the most freeing relationship.”

Listening to Cigarettes After Sex gives the impression that Gonzalez has had numerous relationships. But he says there have only been 10 “serious” girlfriends. There have been people he’s dated casually, people he’s been in love with that he wasn’t in a relationship with, people he was in love with who broke his heart and vice versa, and those he wasn’t in a relationship with whom he had sexual encounters. All of the above are fair game for Cigarettes After Sex material.

The songs have hit a global chord, literally. Gonzalez is in Los Angeles, his adopted hometown of the last five years, for a short spell in between tour dates that are taking the group to countries like United Arab Emirates, India, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, and South Africa, not to mention Europe and all over North America. Many of these countries are return stops for Cigarettes After Sex, whose last album, X’s, released summer 2024, catapulted them to arena status worldwide.

“There are artists who have a few love songs, but this is pure romance-based and maybe that is a more easily accepted universal theme,” says Gonzalez. “My first hot relationship, we were both obsessed with music. We went to a concert. It was raining after. We ran to a phone booth and made out. There’s a lot of first crush, first love, first girlfriend going on at our concerts. Almost 90% of comments we get from fans we meet after the show is, ‘It’s my first concert.’ It should be the same experience for them.”

It took Gonzalez a long time and many musical experiments before Cigarettes After Sex had their inexplicable breakthrough on YouTube in 2015 with the song “Affection.” Prior to that, they released the four-song EP, I in 2012 when Gonzalez was still living in his hometown of El Paso, Texas. He moved to New York soon after but started receiving communication from remote countries like Brazil. “I was getting emails from fans saying things like, ‘My girlfriend passed away and your music really helped,’” he says. “It was heartfelt stuff coming from all over the world.”

The signature sensual and languid sounds of Cigarettes After Sex evolved from the influence of a wide range of music and films. Growing up, Gonzalez’s father was in video distribution and the younger Gonzalez had access to countless VHS tapes, from B horror films to French cinema to reissues of classics like Casablanca and Chinatown and softcore porn, the first of which he watched when he was 11. His parents didn’t put restrictions on his viewing, although they “frowned upon” the latter, but, “It wasn’t forbidden, and it contributed to the Cigarettes sound,” says Gonzalez.

Musically, Gonzalez mentions Metallica more than any other band. In fact, he is uncannily able to work Metallica into random parts of our interview, sliding in references to the group at unexpected turns, from how listening to them, and death metal in general, got his guitar chops together to how the all-black Cigarettes After Sex wardrobe takes its cues from those concerts. He’s even trying to figure out a way to bring metal into the Cigarettes After Sex equation to “make metal romantic.”

“Me going to metal shows at 12 was far beyond what was appropriate,” says Gonzalez whose gateway band to metal was Queen. “Kids that are that age now, that’s like me all over again. They’re finding something in [Cigarettes After Sex] music that feels dangerous. It feels new. It feels exciting. They can be that young and understand it. I was that young and understood the same thing.”

He continues, “I never left the feeling of going to metal shows. I always wanted the music I make to have some kind of metal feeling. The fun of those shows, but also the danger, and the cathartic darkness.”

After this tour wraps in April. Gonzalez plans to take off a few years from touring. Instead, he hopes to point his creativity toward the screen, writing and directing a film. “It’s pretty much an impossible side pivot,” he admits. “I think Rob Zombie’s the only one who’s done it successfully.” This is an intriguing prospect, particularly considering Cigarettes After Sex has yet to make a video for their music. “Metallica didn’t do a video for a long time, not until the fourth record,” says Gonzalez, managing to slide Metallica into the conversation yet again.

“I loved music videos growing up but I’m not sure they have the same function as they did then,” he says. “The song is meant to be a novel. The video is in your mind. It feels unnecessary to do a video and I don’t have any good ideas for videos. I have good ideas for films.”

From Metallica, Gonzalez shifted to the Doors and the Smiths, which he says are his two favorite bands. He kept evolving, getting into jazz, Miles Davis in particular, film scores and Francoise Hardy, his favorite singer. (“I had no idea what she was talking about, I just liked the feeling of it.”)

“I thrive on everything being really eclectic and that was my problem forever, my tastes were so eclectic I couldn’t put it together,” says Gonzalez. “I’ve done different stuff in different bands—even Cigarettes was different when it started—but it didn’t give me an emotional release. I loved Cocteau Twins and My Bloody Valentine, but there was no pop payoff. How do I take that sound and make it into a pop song? I made a mix CD of the things that affect me the deepest emotionally and made me want to cry: Chopin and Francoise Hardy and Mazzy Star. Whatever music I make has to be like that: therapeutic or confessional or personal.”

Gonzalez comes across as thoroughly uninhibited in his lyrics, retelling the most revealing details of his intimate encounters, describing both the physical and mental experience. I tell him I’ve had many naughty thoughts while listening to Cigarettes After Sex, and especially provocative ones during my favorite song, the anime porn story “Hentai” from 2019’s Cry.

But, it turns out, Gonzalez gets shy when hearing his music in front of others. “Usually, if I have that experience, it means I’m on track,” he says. “I remember hearing ‘K’ being mixed for the first time and I felt so naked in front of everyone that was listening to it, like a cold wind blowing through me. That’s a sign that it’s probably good.”

The next Cigarettes After Sex album, which likely won’t be released until fall 2026, was recorded the week X’s was released. Recording the subsequent album at the time of release of the current album is a common practice for the group as, according to Gonzalez, “There’s no pressure.”  

The as-yet-titled album is a “ketamine record” says Gonzalez who was new to the drug. It leans heavily into the ’60s and ’70s sounds, specifically, the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds and Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon with a dose of The Virgin Suicides, which Gonzalez was watching on repeat. Topically, the album reflects Gonzalez’s experience post-break up after moving to Los Angeles, during what he calls, “A very polyamorous season, three loves at once. There was heartbreak too. For all that euphoric stuff when you fall in love, the heartbreak for me is brutal. It’s like being poisoned. I usually try to get over it really fast, throw it all up. I have mourned someone for years and that’s terrible. It’s way worse. I had to mourn each one of the three loves to be with the person I’m with now. It’s going to be painful to get into that stuff when the record comes out.”

He adds, “Sexuality in music is so forceful. It doesn’t feel like sex. I want to make songs where it feels like the atmosphere of a really positive sexual experience in love. Gentle, but dirty.”

To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, click here.

Throughout the conversation, he’s inquisitive, thoughtful, and careful with his answers, the exact approach he applies to his career, one that began to take shape when he was still a kid playing with Tonka trucks. 

Born in 1997 in Raleigh, North Carolina to a 16-year-old single mother, Cordae Amari Brooks had the advantage of being exposed to the tail end of arguably hip-hop’s best era, often referred to as the “golden era.”

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“If you’re Black in America, hip-hop is not something you discover, it’s just there,” he said, his light brown eyes firmly focused on the road. “[Growing up with younger parents] definitely helped a lot because my parents—my mom more so and my stepdad at the time—were listening to Jay-Z’s The Blueprint and ‘Money Ain’t a Thang.’ So whoever was that super-hot artist at the time… I remember listening to College Dropout when it first came out as a 5-year-old. I remember listening to T.I., DMX, and Nas on four-hour car rides.” 

He tells me about a trip to Walmart with his mom when he was just 4. As he strolled through the aisles, he was singing a T.I. song called “24″ that includes the lyrics “Cause I’ve been dranking/And I’ve been smoking.” 

“This older white guy kept looking at me, and my mom was just so embarrassed,” he says with a laugh. “She’s like, ‘Oh, my god.’ But as far as my musical taste and style, having younger parents helped me mature faster.”

That was evident in his 2022 TED Talk, where he outlined what he calls his “hi-level mindset” and jokingly referred to himself as a “critically acclaimed, world-renowned B-list celebrity.” His presentation was smart and funny, and exuded a wisdom atypical of a male in his early 20s.

“I switched elementary schools about five different times,” he explained in his talk. “I remember one time [my mother’s] car had gotten stolen twice in one week. She overcame circumstance, obstacles, her environment, and negativity. As I watched, our living situations would continue to get better and better as the years went by. That’s hi-level.” 

Armed with these lessons of perseverance and resilience, Cordae kept searching for a way to improve his living situation. He vividly remembers moving into his grandmother’s home and seeing an infestation of roaches exploding behind her dresser. 

“That shit was just covered in them,” he says with disgust. “I was only 9 or 10 at the time and I remember thinking, ‘Man, this is some bullshit.’ I remember complaining to my aunt, who was just six years older than me, and she said, ‘This is real life. There are roaches on the wall and the carpet smells like piss. Why don’t you rap about that?’”

Even at that young age, Cordae had already been rapping for a few years. He replied to his aunt, “‘Damn, that’s not a bad idea.’ As a 10-year-old, I was rapping about money, cars, clothes, and having girls—straight lying.” 

There was a point when he was “obsessed” with money, at least that’s what his mother told him. But he had good reason, and part of that reason pushed him to grind harder. 

“I would come out with a hustle every year, whether it be selling candy, trading and buying shoes, or working at a barbershop,” he says. “I just wanted to have money when I got older. I would tell my mom, ‘No offense, but I don’t want to live like this.’ I think that definitely motivated me as far as work ethic.”

While he wasn’t exactly an honor roll student, Cordae graduated from high school in 2015 and later attended Towson University in Maryland, where he was briefly derailed by the typical college freshman experience — too much partying. Noting that college was something he did for his mother and not necessarily what he wanted to do, Cordae eventually dropped out and moved to Los Angeles in pursuit of a music career. 

It paid off. 

After years of making mixtapes and gaining little traction, Cordae released his first official single in May 2018, a remix of Eminem’s 1999 hit “My Name Is,” which he called his “introduction to the world.” He followed up with “Old Niggas” — a direct response to J. Cole’s divisive “1985” about the younger rap generation — and “Fighting Temptations” and “Kung Fu.”

His breakthrough continued that month, when he made his live performance debut at the Rolling Loud Festival sharing the stage with friends and former rap crewmates YBN Nahmir and YBN Almighty Jay. Cordae was then announced as an opening act for Juice’s WRLD Domination Tour, covering 28 cities in North America. Cordae suddenly found himself staring at the precipice of fame. 

Months later, he was nominated in both the Best Rap Album and Best Rap Song categories at the 62nd Grammy Awards for his 2019 major label debut The Lost Boy (Art@War/Atlantic Records), and his star was suddenly a supernova. 

Weaving elements of classic hip-hop with traditional rhyming skills and a youthful energy, The Lost Boy was praised for its crossover appeal. Now, it wasn’t just Gen Z welcoming him into the fold, it was Gen X, millennials, and maybe even some of their parents. The project debuted at No. 13 on the Billboard 200, selling more than 25,000 copies in its opening week.

His 2022 sophomore record, From a Birds Eye View, sent him into even higher orbit, with appearances by Gunna, Lil Wayne, H.E.R., Lil Durk, Freddie Gibbs, Stevie Wonder, Eminem and Roddy Ricch. Once again, it debuted at No. 13 on the Billboard 200 and was celebrated for its top-tier storytelling. 

Fame is something he’s beginning to accept as just part of his life, but he’s relieved he’s not “Michael Jackson famous.”

“I’m like real-deal famous, like when I go to the grocery store,” he said. “People recognize me when I go shopping pretty much in every major city in the world. It’s definitely a blessing that people recognize me from the art.”

Still driving and reminiscing, Cordae recalled going overseas with his younger brother, who was blown away by Cordae’s international notoriety. 

“We were in London and I had on a mask and a do-rag,” he said. “I don’t know how the fuck, but somebody still recognized me. My little brother was like, ‘Yo, people know you in London and Paris. That’s fucking crazy!’

“It’s a weird construct, being famous, honestly. At least I’m not like ‘I can’t go outside’ famous. I feel like that would be super annoying. When I go out in public, I definitely get recognized and somebody might secretly record me, but for the most part, people are pretty respectful. I’m the right amount of famous.” 

Cordae was accustomed to getting even more attention when he started dating tennis player Naomi Osaka in 2019. After roughly five years together and one child, Osaka announced their amiable breakup on social media in January 2025, just a week before our interview. In an Instagram post, she insisted, “No bad blood at all; he’s a great person and an awesome dad.” 

For Cordae, it appeared to be business as usual. He continued pushing his latest album, The Crossroads, which arrived in November 2024. As the title suggests, Cordae has listened to a lot of Bone Thugs-n-Harmony, whose biggest song, 1995’s “Tha Crossroads,” is repurposed for the album’s intro. Other elements of bygone eras are also sprinkled throughout the project, including Barbara Mason, Fugees, and Luther Vandross, highlighting his mature musical palate. 

Artistically, Cordae is still rapping in an elite class and with enough technical skill to impress anyone in his field. Commercially, he’s keenly aware that his last album didn’t perform as well as his first two albums (it debuted at No. 143). However, since becoming a father, his priorities have slightly shifted. 

“Being a dad makes me realize what’s truly important,” he said. “In order to succeed in the music or entertainment business, you gotta dedicate your life to this shit. When you dedicate your life to something and give it your all, some random music critic could say an hour after I drop something I just put my heart soul into, that it wasn’t dope. That shit could hurt your feelings, but I got a daughter. She’s well fed, taken care of, got a roof over her head, and she’s healthy. The rest of y’all can suck my dick.” 

And now we’re back to that hi-level mindset, which includes the capacity to rise above any negativity and get back to what truly matters. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t care about his music and hip-hop culture in general; he cares. A lot. 

“When you’re all the way invested and you love this shit, and you put your time, effort, heart — everything — into this shit, you’re gonna be sensitive about it and you’re gonna care about it. I give a fuck about this shit. I give a fuck about artistic integrity. I give a fuck about putting that time, effort, energy, thought, love, and care into music. 

“But me having a kid? That’s what really matters.” 

Fatherhood has changed him in ways that benefit his career too. As he explained to me, he’s a lot more disciplined when it comes to “making music at an accelerated rate.” 

“Sometimes you’d be in the studio just vibing and chilling, playing video games and talking with your homies,” he said. “Now it’s like, ‘Nah, bro, it’s war.’ Some of that stuff is still needed in the sense of conversation, enjoyment, and having fun in the studio. That’s still there because that’s a part of the creation process, but this shit is war. I’m not here to play games.”

That’s what he plans to do for the rest of 2025, keep his foot on the gas. 

“My goal is to drop higher quality at a higher quantity,” he says. “I know what that takes, so that’s where I’m at. I just want to get better and do it more frequently and not overthink; find that perfect balance between putting thought into things but not overthinking.” 

Cordae’s childhood dreams have come true. He was able to climb out of poverty and live a life he couldn’t have imagined. And although he’s only 27, he’s got an old soul, something he’s been told for years. 

“I’ve been getting that since I was 10 years old,” he says with a chuckle. “It’s because I had super young parents and had to kind of mature fast. I was also the ‘man of the house’ at a very young age, too. I think those two things definitely shaped my perspective.” 

Things are looking up for Cordae. While he may have a song called “Mad As Fuck” on The Crossroads, he struggled to pinpoint what he’s mad about today. 

Part of the hi-level mindset is “always remain positive,” something he’s clearly mastered. 

“I haven’t been mad as fuck as of late, honestly, just more so disappointed,” he reveals. “But mad? I haven’t been mad as fuck.” 

To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, click here.

You could say the same thing about Turizo’s career. At 24, he’s a three-time Latin Billboard Award-winner and was an honoree in Variety’s “Power of Young Hollywood 2024.” His 2023 hit song “La Bachata” became the No. 1 most-streamed Latin solo song in Spotify history last year, earning him 26x Latin Platinum status and U.S. Platinum certification. He has appeared on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon and performed in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade (and the NBC Rockefeller Christmas Tree Lighting!). 

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Turizo’s rapidly growing impact goes beyond music. In the fashion world, he’s worked with brands like Fendi, Dior, and American Eagle. During our interview, he wears a black Eme Studios Club ball cap that sits atop his shaved head and silver hooped earrings in each ear.

He shows me some of his other tattoos—a double helix, a dopamine pill, a CD—all representing his first three albums: ADN (the Spanish abbreviation for DNA), Dopamina, and 2000. He has yet to get ink for his fourth album, 201, released last November. 

Turizo is in Spain, where he’s taping the 10th season of La Voz Kids (part of the internationally syndicated franchise The Voice), the Spanish music competition show for kids, on which he’s a coach. 

He seems to end every sentence with a smile, his arms outstretched across the back of his chair, perfectly relaxed. He’s charming, charismatic, and personable, which, besides his smooth tenor voice and genre-defying musicality, made him an international sensation. Being able to sing in English, Spanish, French, and “whatever is needed,” he says, doesn’t hurt, either.

Manuel briefly considered becoming a veterinarian when he was a child due to his love for animals. But watching his father and older brother, Julián, play guitar, he quickly felt the pull toward music. 

“As a kid, you start trying to do the same things that you see the older people in your house and your environment [do],” he says, speaking perfect English. “When I turned 12 years old, I wanted to get lessons about how to sing, how to sing correctly, you know? I used to sing, but everybody can sing in the bathroom, like not in a good way. So I wanted to learn correctly.”

Columbia is the third-largest supplier of beef in Latin America and the Caribbean, most of which comes from the small working-class town of Montería, where Turizo grew up. There, cattle graze lazily on acres of farmland while planchones — covered rafts — shuttle passengers across the Sinú River to Ronda del Sinú Park, where iguanas, monkeys, and sloths roam. The sunsets are incredible, he says. “In Montería we say this Caribbean phrase, ‘bajo sin nu,’ which basically means ‘without a penny,’ because we can have no money and still be so happy to be alive in such a beautiful place,” Manuel tells me. 

Twelve-year-old Turizo found a vocal coach and begged his parents for classes. They agreed to pay for two lessons if he got a job and helped pay for the rest. So he sold hats, bags, cellphones, and other items. “That was the moment where I started writing songs about that time of my life.” It was also the moment when he started thinking about his future, what he wanted to be, and his place in the world. “When you are a teenager, I feel like you are trying to look out where your place is in the world, you know, where you came from. I found mine in the music.” 

Accompanied by Julián on guitar, ukulele, and vocals, Turizo began making music, releasing his first two singles, “Vámonos” and “Baila Conmigo” in December 2016. But it was releasing his third song on YouTube, “Una Lady Como Tú,” at the age of 17 in March 2017, that catapulted his career, going viral with 300 million views (now almost 2 billion) and ranking in the Top 40 of the Hot Latin Songs chart. 

Soon after, he signed with La Industria Inc., a Sony-distributed label, and opened for Puerto Rican singer-songwriter Ozuna during his 2017 Colombian tour, before touring on his own and selling out all of his own shows. “Achieving success at a young age made me happy, being able to get up and do what I like,” he tells me. “It’s a blessing. I am living my path of happiness.”

Over the next two years, he released a slew of singles, including a collaboration with Ozuna on “Vaina Loca,” for Ozuna’s second album, Aura, which became Manuel’s first to chart on the Billboard Top 100 — and one of the first songs to reach 1 billion views on YouTube. 

Other singles like “Esperándote” and “Una Vez Más” with Puerto Rican rapper Noriel, eventually culminated in his 2019 debut album, ADN, which soared to No. 8 on the Top Latin Albums chart. A star was truly born.

In 2021 Dopamina, hit No. 15 on the Top Latin Albums chart. 

Up to this point in his career, the Columbian singer-songwriter had experimented with a variety of music genres—reggaetón, vallenato, trap, and even R&B. But when he decided to create a new song based on the Bachata—a Dominican style, acoustic guitar-infused style with Spanish, African, and Taino elements—using electronic riffs and R&B vocals, it was a risky move. Released in May 2022, “La Bachata,” became his biggest hit to date.

“If you don’t try different things, you’re not going to get what you’re looking for,” he says.

His third album, 2000 — 23 years out of synch with its title — in 2023, includes collaborations with Argentine singer Maria Becerra on “Éxtasis”, and Marshmello on “El Merengue,” and ranked No. 11 on the Top Latin Albums chart. Turizo also collaborated with Shakira on her 2023 single, “Copa Vacía,” and made it into her mermaid-themed video. 

“Every day is like trying to challenge myself to see how I can get better, how I can do my best and how I can improve what I know,” he says. “I see it as a game. You try and just be better every day, you know? I have the blessing, thank God, to be doing something that I love to do.”

Beginning with Gloria Estefan in the 1980s and Jennifer Lopez, Ricky Martin, and Shakira in the ’90s and 2000s, a new generation of musicians such as Bad Bunny, Karol G, Peso Pluma, and, of course, Manuel Turizo, are enjoying crossover fame in the U.S. According to a study released last year, Latin music listenership had increased by 15.1% over a year with almost 51 billion streams by June 2024, outpacing rock, pop, gospel, and country. That makes Latin music the fastest-growing genre on U.S. streaming platforms. 

I ask him how he feels about this current surge of Latin music in the U.S. He tells me it’s both incredible and brutal — I assume he means his relentless work schedule. Now that he’s living in Miami, he’s witnessing it firsthand. “I love it,” he says. “It fascinates me and I hope it’s the same with my music. And we have to learn, internalize, evolve, and try new things, make a new, happy, and content world.”

In November 2024, Manuel released 201. Named after the apartment unit he grew up in as a boy, the 12-track album showcases a mix of Latin rhythms and urban beats. It was important for him to transport listeners to the simplicity and beauty of his hometown during his childhood. 

“I wanted to make it feel like you’re in my city, in Montería, in the Caribbean,” he says. “I wanted people to feel like how it would sound if I take you to a party with my friends where I’m from, what I like to listen to, how it would be.” 

His childhood apartment number on the album cover is more than an identifier of rental space, he says; it’s a testament to how far he’s come. “It’s where my life happened, where all the bad and the good things happened.” The idea, he says, is for people to listen to the album in their own places, with their families and the people they love, and to make memories. The release date of the album was intentional as well, right before the holiday season when families and friends get together to enjoy each other’s company. 

“It’s about being with your people, to enjoy with your people. It’s being happy. It’s just being chill with good vibes,” he says. While each track is different, he says, the overall vibe is the tropical flavor of the Caribbean. “In Colombia, I feel we love to party, we love to be happy.”

Manuel never thought music would lead him to become one of Columbia’s biggest music sensations since Shakira. “I just wanted to do something that I really love to do,” he says. “I didn’t know anything else. I didn’t know how far you could go on this. I didn’t know anything about the music industry. I just knew that I liked the music.”

He says what he really holds dear is his family, who were his first supporters. Julián, who helped him launch his musical career, is still his musical partner. In fact, he composes most of Turizo’s songs. 

His roots lie, he says, not in where he geographically came from, but who he came from. “Where you come from is your DNA… and that is everything,” he says. “In the end, we are what we are taught.”

To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, click here.

It’s been five years since I spoke to Finneas last. That time it was at his former home in the Highland Park area. His sister Billie Eilish’s debut album, which Finneas co-wrote and produced, was released earlier that year, destroying prior concepts about popular music. He hadn’t yet won 10 Grammys—including Producer of the Year, and a pair each of Academy Awards and Golden Globes for his Bond and Barbie songs with Billie. Even so, Finneas had a confidence that was unnerving and a maturity far beyond his 22 years.

Now, at 27, Finneas is even more self-assured. It feels like he’s aged at least 20 years when it comes to his worldview and understanding of not only people but himself. In a few days from now, he will have a few more Grammy nominations including Album of the Year for Hit Me Hard and Soft, Record of the Year and Song of the Year for “Birds of a Feather.” 

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Today, Finneas is wearing a worn-out Testament T-shirt that looks like one of Target’s graphic music tees, but I know it’s not. His pants and Nikes are equally worn. He continually moves his black baseball cap to tuck in errant strands of his red hair. Once we’re settled on a couch in one of the studio’s smaller rooms, he fidgets and reorganizes his long limbs repeatedly, while flashes of the gum he’s chewing appear and reappear.

“Supremely confident” is how I referred to him in 2019. After attending one of his shows that year, I began watching his extremely likable influencer/actor girlfriend Claudia Sulewski’s unintentionally calming YouTube videos (in which Finneas appears frequently, making him a reality star of sorts), and adopting many of her habits and recommendations. Shouts of “Claudia! Claudia!” are heard often during Finneas’ concerts, which is why I looked her up. She is partially visible on the album cover, and stars in the videos for “Lotus Eater” and the title track.

There are practices and products I’ve picked up from Claudia. I share this with Finneas, and he throws his head back with laughter. “I’ll have to tell her that,” he says, smiling from ear to ear, effortlessly charming—one of his key characteristics.

Finneas occupies an interesting space in the fame spectrum. He is centrally involved with some of the most high-profile entertainment IPs of the last half-decade, yet he has the luxury of being relatively low profile in everyday life. “I’m in a sweet spot where I’m famous enough to get a table at a restaurant, but not enough to have a photo on the restaurant wall,” he chuckles. “I have such a good thing going. I don’t want Billie’s level of fame and notoriety at all. That’s become more true every day of the last five years.”

This is not to say that Finneas doesn’t have ambitions for his solo music, or the many other creative projects in which he is involved, including his recent score for Alfonso Cuarón’s Apple TV+ series Disclaimer starring Cate Blanchette, Kevin Kline, and Sacha Baron Cohen, and his role as one of Stephanie Hsu’s love interests, “Bad Sex Jason,” in the upcoming Peacock series, Laid.

“I have very different expectations for what my solo music is going to achieve to what Billie has achieved,” he says. “But in terms of my ambition, my goals and expectations, I don’t want anyone to ever think, ‘His solo stuff would be really huge if he’d just try.’ I don’t want to be the thing in the way of my music doing really well.”

Finneas isn’t afraid to show his ambition and it’s refreshing to experience. He does a fair bit of name-dropping, but not for the sake of it, only if it helps illustrate a point he’s making or describes a learning experience he had. He bumped into Lewis Capaldi the other evening who gave him props on his album. Last night, he was at an event with the most notable composers in Hollywood, Hans Zimmer, Diane Warren, Harry Gregson-Williams, and Lesley Barber among them. He quotes his friend Charlotte Lawrence’s father, Bill Lawrence. Finneas is quick to give a disclaimer before mentioning anyone’s name, but these are the people that exist in his professional circle.

As an A-list songwriter and producer, Finneas is in many sessions with marquee artists as well as up-and-comers. Out of these sessions he’s had positive outcomes, which for him means the song he worked on getting the attention and push he feels it deserves, and not-so-positive outcomes where the song has disappeared as a non-single album cut.

“A big part of this album was me wanting to do it justice,” he says. “I want to take these songs I’m really passionate about, tell a story with them, and expand the album’s universe: here’s the people that played on it, here is the room we recorded it in, here’s a live video of it. It’s about giving people the opportunity to understand it.”

For Cryin’ Out Loud sees Finneas writing and recording in a traditional band format, a way he hasn’t since he was 18. His debut solo album, Optimist, and his many singles and EPs were created by him in bedroom-producer fashion. He chose good friends to collaborate with, including Aron Forbes, Billie’s musical director who worked with her and Finneas from before they started performing live. 

Now, Finneas isn’t the “taskmaster” he describes his 13-year-old self as being. “Dictating parts and bossing everybody around. In retrospect, I wish I had a looser grip on the reins and been more friendly. I would have learned more doing that,” he reflects.

On the other hand, “You could make an argument that the career I have now is because I was always that way,” Finneas says. “But I try not to be that way. One of the things I’ve gotten really good at over the years is the nicest way to tell somebody I don’t like their idea. It might take an extra two minutes, but you’re going to have a less disenfranchised group of people by the end of it.”

For Cryin’ Out Loud was a group effort for a solo goal, which might be why the album sounds so intimate. “I went into the process really relaxed,” says Finneas. “I’m a confident writer. I wasn’t less confident in a room full of people. Everybody went into it knowing they were helping me make my record. I could make this album alone. I don’t need to bring a bunch of people in, but the days they’re in the studio, I better be a good collaborator. I don’t want to be a collaborator that steamrolls anybody. If I have an ongoing relationship with somebody, they have to be inspired.”

This is embedded in the advice he has given Billie as she embarks on her producer career. She’s learned a lot from Finneas as he’s worked on their music, including every minute of her most recent album, Hit Me Hard and Soft. He’s taught her as much engineering as “she’s had an attention span for.” Billie had her first taste of production with Nat and Alex Wolff, who are her support act for some of the Hit Me Hard and Soft tour dates. But, Finneas says, it is her non-technical language like “brighten up the vocal,” or “take it so the whole piece of music swells and then the pitch goes dead,” that has propelled them into the most creative of places.

“When you start producing, you start to realize how hard it is to achieve stuff like that,” Finneas says. “There’s a period of time where you become less creative because you are more concerned about how you’re going to do it. It’s the difference between an architect and a contractor. You get less imaginative when you realize it’s hard, and you learn how to cut corners. I said to Billie recently, ‘You’re going to have to remember to be as imaginative as you were before you knew any of this stuff.’

“One of my favorite parts about working with her is that she’s very imaginative,” he continues. “But when we make her next album, at first, I bet she’s more aware and will say, ‘I don’t know how you do that. It would be hard.’ That language isn’t useful. It’s much better for her to be like, ‘Can you make it sound visible?’ and I’ll figure it out.”

If there is a through-thread in Finneas’ creativity it is to, “Get out of the pattern of whatever I do the most, because that doesn’t feel like I’m going to evolve.” New, or at least different, is what appeals to him. It’s why he took on the monumental task of scoring Disclaimer, which, unlike his prior scores for The Fallout and Vengeance, required Finneas to acquire an extensive new skill set to work with orchestral elements.

Disclaimer director Alfonso and Finneas have a longstanding friendship, but, as Finneas says, “Once you’re working together, it only matters how you work together, not your prior relationship. It’s like with Billie. We love each other, we’re family, but we’re still working. We’re not cutting each other slack because we’re siblings. We’re still expecting a lot from each other.”

Finneas says he learned the most about scoring from working on Disclaimer, whose soundtrack was released November 8, the same day as the series finale. His work began before shooting at the script stage. Alfonso’s reference music was Bach and Vivaldi, and Finneas had to learn how to compose for an orchestra. He created two-and-a-half hours’ worth of music for the series and his score features prominently, and loudly, manipulating the narrative and having an undeniable presence in the storytelling. The final versions of the cues are Finneas’ fourth or fifth passes after Alfonso’s notes. He admits, “I got hired to do this thing I wasn’t really qualified for,” but he pulls it off.

“I’m confident, but I don’t think I’m a genius,” he says. “I’m the most critical of myself. Billie and I have no people giving us feedback because, by the time we both like something, it’s taken forever. We’re so hard on ourselves and we’re hard on each other and that’s enough. Me turning in a piece of music and Alfonso saying, ‘It’s close, but it’s not all the way there,’ oftentimes, I’d be like, ‘You’re totally right.’ And other times, he’d approve something, and I’d be like, ‘You sure you don’t want me to take another crack at it?’”

Finneas hasn’t been in front of the camera (other than in his own videos and alongside Billie) in an acting capacity since 2018 (although he did have a cameo on Dave in 2022). Acting roles in Glee and Modern Family helped fund his music passion. He considers himself “less experienced” in the acting world. When he was presented with the opportunity for Laid, he took it as another chance to learn new skills and think differently.

“I have very little ego about the whole thing,” he says. “If someone says, ‘I love that show,’ I don’t feel like it’s a compliment to me. Even scoring Disclaimer, where my presence is much bigger than acting in a couple of scenes, if they hated it, I wouldn’t feel insulted. But if someone hated the music, I would feel responsible.”

Yet accolades are a big part of Finneas’ existence. It seems the default is that if he’s involved with anything, particularly with Billie, they are given the highest honors for it. I picture some of his many awards out of sight in cabinets as surely there isn’t enough space for them all. Ten Grammys alone take up a lot of surface area, not to mention the Academy Awards and the Golden Globes.

“I never thought we’d get those, and I don’t pretend that we’ll keep winning them,” he says. “It’s really satisfying, and it makes me feel proud of the work I’ve done in a way that is irrefutable. But it doesn’t make me think I’m better than the five people I’m nominated with or that I’m better than anyone, but it makes me feel very validated. It’s 10 more awards than I’d ever thought I’d have, but that could totally be it forever.”

Still, when he’s in a writing room, it’s those awards and chart-toppers that collaborators can’t help imagining he’ll bring to them. 

Finneas is aware of this unrealistic expectation. “I wish I could run around like Ty Pennington on Extreme Home Makeover and make a song with someone and win them an Oscar and a Grammy. That would make me feel great. But I’m just a person. I might have my worst idea on that day. Or, even more frustratingly, I might make something that I think is incredible, and it doesn’t get its flowers because that’s the way of the world.”

I remember Finneas making music and architecture analogies five years ago and how their descriptions stuck with me. When I comment on this, Finneas says he attended a Glen Hansard Q&A at the Grammy Museum when he was in his teens, where he heard the singer-songwriter describing songs as chairs. To paraphrase him, if you build them really well, they’ll outlive you, but a lot of the time, you don’t build them well and you know, this one isn’t going to feel good for another 80 years. That analogy stuck with Finneas.

When I ask him if he’s always had this confidence, he says yes. When I ask where it comes from, he responds, “Part of it is if I see somebody doing something, I wonder if I can do it, and I think, ‘I’m going to try.’ Part of it is that I’m totally not afraid to fail or be wrong. If you take fear out of, ‘Maybe I’m wrong, maybe I’m failing,’ then who cares?”

To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, click here.