Music Features

So, How Was Your 2020? is a series in which our favorite entertainers answer our questionnaire about the music, culture and memorable moments that shaped their year. We’ll be rolling these pieces out throughout December. Hayley Williams redefined her musical style with her debut solo album,Petals for Armor, released this …

Ozzy Osbourne first encountered Eddie Van Halen in 1978, when Black Sabbath welcomed Van Halen as their openers. It wasn’t long before the Iron Men realized that the young Californians had enough energy to keep them on their toes, but Osbourne nevertheless appreciated Eddie’s guitar playing. Here, the singer remembers …

Steve Vai and Eddie Van Halen were not the most likely of friends. After David Lee Roth acrimoniously left Van Halen in 1985, Roth recruited Vai — an Eddie Van Halen–inspired, finger-tapping virtuoso — for his solo band. Vai played on Roth’s albums Eat ‘Em and Smile and Skyscraper – …

Sadie Dupuis never intended for her song “Ghost (of a Good Time)” to become a quarantine anthem. The synth-pop tune was partially inspired by her memory of a Bushwick, Brooklyn, show that started at 1 a.m., but its true subject is binging a Netflix series all day — something many …

Rolling Stone interview series Unknown Legends features long-form conversations between senior writer Andy Greene and veteran musicians who have toured and recorded alongside icons for years, if not decades. All are renowned in the business, but some are less well known to the general public. Here, these artists tell their …

A few years ago, Conor Oberst was attending a Christmas party at Nate Walcott’s home in Los Angeles when he told his Bright Eyes bandmate he had an idea. “It kind of just came out of my mouth,” Oberst, 40, recalls: “’Let’s do it. Let’s make a record.’” To Walcott, …

Best Coast acknowledge that they became popular almost by accident. “We really had no aspirations at all,” multi-instrumentalist Bobb Bruno tells Rolling Stone. “We’ve always said: ‘A band could not have tried less to actively become a successful band than us.’” The world into which the duo dropped its debut …

Robbie Shakespeare — reggae artist extraordinaire, prolific bassist, and in-demand producer alongside his longtime collaborator Sly Dunbar — admits he was “humbled” upon learning he made Rolling Stone’s recent list of the 50 Greatest Bassists of All Time. “Number 17, that’s good,” Shakespeare says of his ranking, “compared to all …

Roger Taylor‘s original plans for 2020 called for him to spend the evening of June 29th drumming with Queen and Adam Lambert at the 15,000-seat Olympiahalle in Munich, Germany, as part of their ongoing Rhapsody world tour. Instead, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, he spent that night watching the Netflix …

Ben Folds has been living in Sydney, Australia, since the COVID-19 pandemic started sweeping the globe entonths back. And he’s probably going to be there for a while; the number of U.S. cases has ratcheted up recently in states that attempted to reopen prematurely. Folds isn’t despairing, though — at …