Music may be the universal language, but songwriting certainly has its American dialects. Just ask acclaimed champion of the craft, Cliff Goldmacher. Over the past three decades, he's lived and written songs in Nashville, New York, Los Angles, San Francisco and more, each locale with a homespun songwriting culture all its own. He's also collaborated across genres with a wide array of artists including Keb’ Mo’, Kesha, Lisa Loeb, Spin Doctors singer Chris Barron and Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart. So what can be learned from a lifetime of songwriting? More than one might think, according to Goldmacher's new book, The Reason For The Rhymes, due out Sept. 15.

"The whole idea was just to show you that rhymes, songs, have a larger utility than just for themselves, not that there's anything wrong with writing a song just to write a song. But there's a bigger picture out there, and a whole world," Goldmacher tells us via Zoom. "Know that every skill you develop when you're writing a song can become something even greater when you open up to it."

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Today, you can find him opening up new minds to the skills songwriting can teach, whether through leading workshops with businesses across the country (and now via Zoom), giving Ted Talks on songwriting, contributing articles to various outlets, running a recording studio or any of his other many ventures. But Goldmacher's winding journey to discovering the larger context of songwriting started when he moved to Music City in the early '90s, where he cut his teeth, learned to co-write, landed a publishing deal and penned tunes full time for 12 years.

"If Nashville teaches you anything, it's to think about songwriting as the craft that it is." He says. "People think of songwriting as this kind of mystical thing that only… But what I've discovered over time, especially living in Nashville when I did, is that it's a skill. Yes, you need to be inspired, and yes, there has to be a little bit of self-awareness that you want to express yourself. But beyond that, you can break it down into as small a piece as you want and just kind of learn what the songwriting process is about."

Goldmacher had the opportunity to move to New York, where he opened a small studio and discovered a songwriting community that was a "very different animal," with the focus more on bands. After a handful of years learning the city's music culture, he moved to where he really wanted to live, the wine country Sonoma, Calif. From there, he's been ahead of the curve in collaborating from afar, well before the restrictions imposed by the pandemic.

"When I'm home in Sonoma, I've also developed a system where I can run my Nashville studio entirely remotely," he says. "So my session musicians and session singers will come into the Nashville studio. My songwriting clients, who are getting their demos done, will log in from wherever they are, and we'll run the session that way, so it's sort of GoToMeeting for recording studios."

With his new book, the multi-talented songwriter/producer/educator continues exploring and expanding the creative crossover between songwriting and business innovation, and he's having a ton of fun doing it. We linked up with always witty and upbeat Goldmacher from his studio in Nashville to talk about The Reason For The Rhymes, hear some of his secrets for co-writing online, find out what makes the Motown classic "My Girl" such a great song and more.

Pursuing songwriting, running a recording studio, working and making a living in the music business is a behemoth of a task for anybody. And there's sort of this the musicians' world and then there's the business world. How were you able to create an intersection of the two?

One of the things that I learned in trying to make a living as a songwriter and a producer was that it's extremely rare that everything is going great at the same time. There are times when songwriting's going great. Then when that tends to drop off, then maybe the studio will pick up. So what I decided to do was keep enough plates spinning so that... It's very rare that everything's going great at the same time. It's also very rare that everything is going badly at the same time.

So for me, it was the songwriting, the studio work, and then I started to do this sort of educational component, teaching workshops to songwriters, things like that... The way I like to put it, in all simplicity, is I just want to get up every day and do something that has to do with music. How do I get to do that? So my solution was break it into different parts that are very rarely tethered to each other. When one thing goes badly, it won't drag the others down.

One thing that struck me immediately was that the linchpin for the concept is around innovation. I'm curious what innovation means to you, and how you came to focus on that as something you could offer businesses.

I might flip that around, because I think both of those are great questions. For me, I started with this idea that songwriting develops a certain set of skills that are good for business teams. That's kind of all I had, because I'd been doing these workshops for business teams, getting them to write songs, and I knew it was working. So I started to think to myself, "Well, what are the benefits of teaching yourself to write songs in a larger context?" I was thinking about creativity, and communication, and collaboration, and even empathy.

But I realized, you can't tell a story and just kind of pick out random skills without a unifying concept, and that was what I like to refer to as my dark night of the soul as I was trying to write this book [, was like, "I know this is important. I know it works. But what's the big picture?" Then innovation came to mind, because innovation is the umbrella under which all of these skills work. Because in order to innovate, you need to be creative. You need to be a communicator. There are seven skills [outlined in the book, which bears the subtitle: Mastering the Seven Essential Skills of Innovation by Learning To Write Songs].

Then I had to go a step backwards, and this is the other part of your question, which is, "Well, what do I know about innovation?" So there was another dark night of the soul. Then I thought, "Well, actually, wait a minute. Every single song is a mini-innovation." One of the things that people don't think about when it comes to songwriting is, when you try and pitch a song in the world, you're not just competing against other people writing songs at the time. You're essentially competing against, oh, every song that's ever been written ever. Because any song can get recorded at any time. So for me it was, "Okay, well, on a mini level, every song I write, I'm trying to do something slightly different and slightly new to compete against every song in the world."

Yeah, no pressure.

Right. I mean, and if you think about that too long, your head will explode. So I don't. [laughs] But then in a larger picture, it was, "Well, in order to have a career in music, you also need to innovate. You need to think about ways to keep the lights on." Because in my experience, and I'm sure you've seen this, there are very few thoroughbreds in our game. Very few people who do one thing and do it so well that that is all they need to do.

So for me, innovation meant, "How do I take my career in music, and even when things seem to be going okay, how do I look for the next thing? How do I change just a little so that if the thing that's currently going okay starts to maybe not go okay, there's something else in the pipeline?" Once I thought about it for a minute, I thought, "Well, innovation is kind of what I do anyway."

Once you uncovered that connection, what was the creative process for writing The Reason For The Rhymes?

What's interesting about being a professional songwriter for as long as I have is I know what it feels like to get up every day and write. Now, usually at the end of the day, I've finished something. That was a little different. Because at the end of every day, I had maybe written a couple more pages or done a little... I made a rule for myself, and this is a rule that I apply across pretty much everything I do, which is just break it down into tiny pieces, and you won't feel overwhelmed.

So it started with an outline. I kind of had an arc of how I thought the book should go. Then I kind of woke up every day and wrote into that outline. The outline was just broad strokes, and then I started to kind of fill it in and flesh it out a little bit. Then when I reached that first crisis point... Because when you write a book, you can go a pretty long way down the road before you realize you don't have a point. So when I got to that, I had to step back a little bit, and that's when I kind of figured out the bigger picture of innovation. Then once I did that, I rewrote the outline and then started to, again, just a little bit every day.

I wrote the book over a period of about 10 months. For me, that part of it was actually really joyful. Just like writing songs, that's kind of the sweetest tip of the iceberg of all the effort that you then have to expend to get the book out there, to make people aware of it, to get advance blurbs about the book, all of that. It feels like I wrote the book for three minutes, and for the rest of the year, I was just doing the other stuff.

Sure, I think a lot of songwriters can identify with that. The best song of their career comes to them in 10 minutes, and they have to close with it every night they play for the rest of their life, you know?

Yup. If you're lucky.

You cover several concepts in the book, and storytelling is an obvious one for songwriters. Can you talk about how storytelling plays a role in innovation in the business world?

Happy to. For me, when I think of storytelling and when I think of creativity, just like songwriting, I think a lot of business people think to themselves, "Well, I'm productive. I'm good at my job. But I'm definitely not creative." So for me, verses [of songs], learning to write a good verse in a song is all about storytelling, and storytelling is creativity. What I do with this concept is I break down verse writing into some of the rules. Use visual imagery. Show them, don't tell them. All of the little kind of tricks that we've learned over the years to make a good verse ultimately applies in the larger picture to storytelling.

One of the things that I talk to business teams about is how important it is to balance the emotion with the story. A dry narrative, which is kind of just a bunch of details without any reason why we should care, is kind of the end that businesses tend to stick on. And songwriters, heaven help us, we're all emotion. Right? "I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you." That's nice if you feel it or if you're the person who is being loved. But for anybody else, that's not really all that compelling.

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For business, and the example I use in the book is, I was brought in to work with a business team on coordinating disparate teams. Not so romantic. Not so interesting. The trick is, all right, you've got this concept and you've got all these emotions. How do you bring them together? For songwriters, we have to integrate more story in our verses. But for business people, it's "How do we integrate more emotion? How do we get people to care?"

The example that I use in the book is, instead of saying, "We're going to integrate disparate teams," we wrote a song about geese flying south for the winter. Because if the geese don't work together, they're going to die. They're going to freeze to death. So all of a sudden, there's this baked-in emotion and there's a story about what it means to try and fly south together, and the song we wrote was called "If You've Got My Front, I've Got Your Back." It made this kind of semi-dry concept of coordinating disparate teams into something people care about. Storytelling makes people care if it's done well, and so that's kind of how I coordinate storytelling and creativity and verses all in one area.

For the songwriters reading this, the concept that the verse is where you hone in on storytelling makes sense. Maybe you could do a quick flyby of the structure of a song and some of the elements in each part.

I like to think of songs as being three parts, sometimes just two parts, and in the book I keep it dead simple and just make it kind of two critical parts. Verses are designed to tell the story. It's where you put all your details. It's where you kind of build a world. Choruses, as I like to somewhat indelicately describe it, is where you tie the message of your song, the summary of what you've been leading up to... You tie it to the end of a baseball bat, and you beat the hell out of people with it. That's what a chorus does. You've got just a couple of lines. Usually there's some repetition in the chorus. But the whole idea is, a well-done chorus ultimately becomes unforgettable. It becomes super memorable, because not only are you giving listeners that "Aha, so that's what this song is about," but you're doing it in a way that is catchy and memorable.

When you balance the two, when you've got a well-told verse... I'll give you one of my favorite examples, and I use it in the book, is the song "My Girl" [written by Smokey Robinson and Ronald White]. It is dead simple, but the details are great. "I've got sunshine on a cloudy day. When it's cold outside, I've got the month of May." So already you've got these kind of really interesting, visceral, sensory details. But nobody knows what you're talking about yet, right? Then you've got this dead simple, beautiful chorus. "I guess you'll say, what can make me feel this way? My girl, my girl, my girl. Talking 'bout my girl, my girl." And now you care. You understand why this person feels this way, and you're not going to forget the chorus. There's nothing to it. And it's genius.

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I always use that example, because I want people to understand songs don't have to be long, and they don't have to be complicated, for them to do exactly what they need to do. So verses, choruses. That's kind of how they work.

That’s a great example. So, I have to say, your Zoom setup looks and sounds great. You sound great. How have you adapted to everything being remote?

In all honesty, the reason I hated to collaborate online before I had to was because you miss the body language, you miss the resonance of the instrument in the room. So some of the ways that I've been coping is I've made it so that I'm in a nice, well-lit space. You can see my face. You can read my body language. I have, thanks to the wonderful folks at Shure, a beautiful mic that I use for my voice so that I'm not just relying on the little mic in a laptop. I'm doing the things that make this already somewhat compromised medium work a little better, and not just because it looks a little better or sounds a little better, but because the tangible benefits for a collaboration, where somebody can read my body language or maybe hear a little bit more of what I'm doing on an instrument, actually creates a virtuous cycle of everything kind of sounding better, so you write better, you communicate better.

Your new book, The Reason For The Rhymes, is out Sept. 15 – what does the rollout for this look like for you, and then what's next for you this year and going into 2021?

For the rollout, I'm working with a publicist, and we're doing a series of interviews and podcasts, and I'm writing some articles for some various online outlets, which has been fun. This whole thing has been a little kind of version of celebrity for a day, where it's really fun to focus on this thing. This is like any creative art. You work in obscurity for 18 months on something, and then you've got this really intense couple of months where you're just spreading the word everywhere. So that's a little bit about what these days look like.

In a larger sense, I'm finishing up a record project with a wonderful artist based in New York. We did a lot of recording sort of pre-pandemic, and we're now talking about getting the album out in the world, so that's keeping me busy. And I'm doing some writing with a wonderful songwriter who is married to an artist, a jazz artist named Stacey Kent. So I've been writing with her husband for her. Now we're collaborating on Zoom. Actually, after you and I hop off the line, he and I'll do a little online collaboration to push our songs a little farther down the road.

As far as what next year holds, man, I wish I knew. There was something that somebody said that I thought was genius. Five years ago, anybody who was in a job interview who was asked, "Where do you picture yourself five years from now?" was wrong. So on some level, who knows what's coming?

You can order 'The Reason For The Rhymes,' out Sept. 15, via Amazon or through TheReasonForTheRhymes.com.

RIAA 2020 Mid-Year Report: Recorded-Music Revenues In The U.S. Grew More Than 5 Percent During The First Half Of 2020 Amid Coronavirus Pandemic

 

 

Updated Friday Oct. 13, 2023 to include info about Kendrick Lamar's most recent GRAMMY wins, as of the 2023 GRAMMYs.

A GRAMMY veteran these days, Kendrick Lamar has won 17 GRAMMYs and has received 47 GRAMMY nominations overall. A sizable chunk of his trophies came from the 58th annual GRAMMY Awards in 2016, when he walked away with five — including his first-ever win in the Best Rap Album category.

This installment of GRAMMY Rewind turns back the clock to 2016, revisiting Lamar's acceptance speech upon winning Best Rap Album for To Pimp A Butterfly. Though Lamar was alone on stage, he made it clear that he wouldn't be at the top of his game without the help of a broad support system. 

"First off, all glory to God, that's for sure," he said, kicking off a speech that went on to thank his parents, who he described as his "those who gave me the responsibility of knowing, of accepting the good with the bad."

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He also extended his love and gratitude to his fiancée, Whitney Alford, and shouted out his Top Dawg Entertainment labelmates. Lamar specifically praised Top Dawg's CEO, Anthony Tiffith, for finding and developing raw talent that might not otherwise get the chance to pursue their musical dreams.

"We'd never forget that: Taking these kids out of the projects, out of Compton, and putting them right here on this stage, to be the best that they can be," Lamar — a Compton native himself — continued, leading into an impassioned conclusion spotlighting some of the cornerstone rap albums that came before To Pimp a Butterfly.

"Hip-hop. Ice Cube. This is for hip-hop," he said. "This is for Snoop Dogg, Doggystyle. This is for Illmatic, this is for Nas. We will live forever. Believe that."

To Pimp a Butterfly singles "Alright" and "These Walls" earned Lamar three more GRAMMYs that night, the former winning Best Rap Performance and Best Rap Song and the latter taking Best Rap/Sung Collaboration (the song features Bilal, Anna Wise and Thundercat). He also won Best Music Video for the remix of Taylor Swift's "Bad Blood." 

Lamar has since won Best Rap Album two more times, taking home the golden gramophone in 2018 for his blockbuster LP DAMN., and in 2023 for his bold fifth album, Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers.

Watch Lamar's full acceptance speech above, and check back at GRAMMY.com every Friday for more GRAMMY Rewind episodes. 

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It's rare that a genre can be traced back to a single artist or group, but for funk, that was James Brown. The Godfather of Soul coined the phrase and style of playing known as "on the one," where the first downbeat is emphasized, instead of the typical second and fourth beats in pop, soul and other styles. As David Cheal eloquently explains, playing on the one "left space for phrases and riffs, often syncopated around the beat, creating an intricate, interlocking grid which could go on and on." You know a funky bassline when you hear it; its fat chords beg your body to get up and groove.

Brown's 1965 classic, "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag," became one of the first funk hits, and has been endlessly sampled and covered over the years, along with his other groovy tracks. Of course, many other funk acts followed in the '60s, and the genre thrived in the '70s and '80s as the disco craze came and went, and the originators of hip-hop and house music created new music from funk and disco's strong, flexible bones built for dancing.

Legendary funk bassist Bootsy Collins learned the power of the one from playing in Brown's band, and brought it to George Clinton, who created P-funk, an expansive, Afrofuturistic, psychedelic exploration of funk with his various bands and projects, including Parliament-Funkadelic. Both Collins and Clinton remain active and funkin', and have offered their timeless grooves to collabs with younger artists, including Kali Uchis, Silk Sonic, and Omar Apollo; and Kendrick Lamar, Flying Lotus, and Thundercat, respectively.

In the 1980s, electro-funk was born when artists like Afrika Bambaataa, Man Parrish, and Egyptian Lover began making futuristic beats with the Roland TR-808 drum machine — often with robotic vocals distorted through a talk box. A key distinguishing factor of electro-funk is a de-emphasis on vocals, with more phrases than choruses and verses. The sound influenced contemporaneous hip-hop, funk and electronica, along with acts around the globe, while current acts like Chromeo, DJ Stingray, and even Egyptian Lover himself keep electro-funk alive and well.

Today, funk lives in many places, with its heavy bass and syncopated grooves finding way into many nooks and crannies of music. There's nu-disco and boogie funk, nodding back to disco bands with soaring vocals and dance floor-designed instrumentation. G-funk continues to influence Los Angeles hip-hop, with innovative artists like Dam-Funk and Channel Tres bringing the funk and G-funk, into electro territory. Funk and disco-centered '70s revival is definitely having a moment, with acts like Ghost Funk Orchestra and Parcels, while its sparkly sprinklings can be heard in pop from Dua Lipa, Doja Cat, and, in full "Soul Train" character, Silk Sonic. There are also acts making dreamy, atmospheric music with a solid dose of funk, such as Khruangbin’s global sonic collage.

There are many bands that play heavily with funk, creating lush grooves designed to get you moving. Read on for a taste of five current modern funk and nu-disco artists making band-led uptempo funk built for the dance floor. Be sure to press play on the Spotify playlist above, and check out GRAMMY.com's playlist on Apple Music, Amazon Music and Pandora.

Say She She

Aptly self-described as "discodelic soul," Brooklyn-based seven-piece Say She She make dreamy, operatic funk, led by singer-songwriters Nya Gazelle Brown, Piya Malik and Sabrina Mileo Cunningham. Their '70s girl group-inspired vocal harmonies echo, sooth and enchant as they cover poignant topics with feminist flair.

While they’ve been active in the New York scene for a few years, they’ve gained wider acclaim for the irresistible music they began releasing this year, including their debut album, Prism. Their 2022 debut single "Forget Me Not" is an ode to ground-breaking New York art collective Guerilla Girls, and "Norma" is their protest anthem in response to the news that Roe vs. Wade could be (and was) overturned. The band name is a nod to funk legend Nile Rodgers, from the "Le freak, c'est chi" exclamation in Chic's legendary tune "Le Freak."

Moniquea

Moniquea's unique voice oozes confidence, yet invites you in to dance with her to the super funky boogie rhythms. The Pasadena, California artist was raised on funk music; her mom was in a cover band that would play classics like Aretha Franklin’s "Get It Right" and Gladys Knight’s "Love Overboard." Moniquea released her first boogie funk track at 20 and, in 2011, met local producer XL Middelton — a bonafide purveyor of funk. She's been a star artist on his MoFunk Records ever since, and they've collabed on countless tracks, channeling West Coast energy with a heavy dose of G-funk, sunny lyrics and upbeat, roller disco-ready rhythms.

Her latest release is an upbeat nod to classic West Coast funk, produced by Middleton, and follows her February 2022 groovy, collab-filled album, On Repeat.

Shiro Schwarz

Shiro Schwarz is a Mexico City-based duo, consisting of Pammela Rojas and Rafael Marfil, who helped establish a modern funk scene in the richly creative Mexican metropolis. On "Electrify" — originally released in 2016 on Fat Beats Records and reissued in 2021 by MoFunk — Shiro Schwarz's vocals playfully contrast each other, floating over an insistent, upbeat bassline and an '80s throwback electro-funk rhythm with synth flourishes.

Their music manages to be both nostalgic and futuristic — and impossible to sit still to. 2021 single "Be Kind" is sweet, mellow and groovy, perfect chic lounge funk. Shiro Schwarz’s latest track, the joyfully nostalgic "Hey DJ," is a collab with funkstress Saucy Lady and U-Key.

L'Impératrice

L'Impératrice (the empress in French) are a six-piece Parisian group serving an infectiously joyful blend of French pop, nu-disco, funk and psychedelia. Flore Benguigui's vocals are light and dreamy, yet commanding of your attention, while lyrics have a feminist touch.

During their energetic live sets, L'Impératrice members Charles de Boisseguin and Hagni Gwon (keys), David Gaugué (bass), Achille Trocellier (guitar), and Tom Daveau (drums) deliver extended instrumental jam sessions to expand and connect their music. Gaugué emphasizes the thick funky bass, and Benguigui jumps around the stage while sounding like an angel. L’Impératrice’s latest album, 2021’s Tako Tsubo, is a sunny, playful French disco journey.

Franc Moody

Franc Moody's bio fittingly describes their music as "a soul funk and cosmic disco sound." The London outfit was birthed by friends Ned Franc and Jon Moody in the early 2010s, when they were living together and throwing parties in North London's warehouse scene. In 2017, the group grew to six members, including singer and multi-instrumentalist Amber-Simone.

Their music feels at home with other electro-pop bands like fellow Londoners Jungle and Aussie act Parcels. While much of it is upbeat and euphoric, Franc Moody also dips into the more chilled, dreamy realm, such as the vibey, sultry title track from their recently released Into the Ether.

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Living Legends is a series that spotlights icons in music still going strong today. This week, GRAMMY.com spoke with Billy Idol about his latest EP,  Cage, and continuing to rock through decades of changing tastes.

Billy Idol is a true rock 'n' roll survivor who has persevered through cultural shifts and personal struggles. While some may think of Idol solely for "Rebel Yell" and "White Wedding," the singer's musical influences span genres and many of his tunes are less turbo-charged than his '80s hits would belie.  

Idol first made a splash in the latter half of the '70s with the British punk band Generation X. In the '80s, he went on to a solo career combining rock, pop, and punk into a distinct sound that transformed him and his musical partner, guitarist Steve Stevens, into icons. They have racked up multiple GRAMMY nominations, in addition to one gold, one double platinum, and four platinum albums thanks to hits like "Cradle Of Love," "Flesh For Fantasy," and "Eyes Without A Face." 

But, unlike many legacy artists, Idol is anything but a relic. Billy continues to produce vital Idol music by collaborating with producers and songwriters — including Miley Cyrus — who share his forward-thinking vision. He will play a five-show Vegas residency in November, and filmmaker Jonas Akerlund is working on a documentary about Idol’s life. 

His latest release is Cage, the second in a trilogy of annual four-song EPs. The title track is a classic Billy Idol banger expressing the desire to free himself from personal constraints and live a better life. Other tracks on Cage incorporate metallic riffing and funky R&B grooves. 

Idol continues to reckon with his demons — they both grappled with addiction during the '80s — and the singer is open about those struggles on the record and the page. (Idol's 2014 memoir Dancing With Myself, details a 1990 motorcycle accident that nearly claimed a leg, and how becoming a father steered him to reject hard drugs. "Bitter Taste," from his last EP, The Roadside, reflects on surviving the accident.)

Although Idol and Stevens split in the late '80s — the skilled guitarist fronted Steve Stevens & The Atomic Playboys, and collaborated with Michael Jackson, Rick Ocasek, Vince Neil, and Harold Faltermeyer (on the GRAMMY-winning "Top Gun Anthem") —  their common history and shared musical bond has been undeniable. The duo reunited in 2001 for an episode of "VH1 Storytellers" and have been back in the saddle for two decades. Their union remains one of the strongest collaborations in rock 'n roll history.

While there is recognizable personnel and a distinguishable sound throughout a lot of his work, Billy Idol has always pushed himself to try different things. Idol discusses his musical journey, his desire to constantly move forward, and the strong connection that he shares with Stevens. 

Steve has said that you like to mix up a variety of styles, yet everyone assumes you're the "Rebel Yell"/"White Wedding" guy. But if they really listen to your catalog, it's vastly different.

Yeah, that's right. With someone like Steve Stevens, and then back in the day Keith Forsey producing... [Before that] Generation X actually did move around inside punk rock. We didn't stay doing just the Ramones two-minute music. We actually did a seven-minute song. [Laughs]. We did always mix things up. 

Then when I got into my solo career, that was the fun of it. With someone like Steve, I knew what he could do. I could see whatever we needed to do, we could nail it. The world was my oyster musically. 

"Cage" is a classic-sounding Billy Idol rocker, then "Running From The Ghost" is almost metal, like what the Devil's Playground album was like back in the mid-2000s. "Miss Nobody" comes out of nowhere with this pop/R&B flavor. What inspired that?

We really hadn't done anything like that since something like "Flesh For Fantasy" [which] had a bit of an R&B thing about it. Back in the early days of Billy Idol, "Hot In The City" and "Mony Mony" had girls [singing] on the backgrounds. 

We always had a bit of R&B really, so it was actually fun to revisit that. We just hadn't done anything really quite like that for a long time. That was one of the reasons to work with someone like Sam Hollander [for the song "Rita Hayworth"] on The Roadside. We knew we could go [with him] into an R&B world, and he's a great songwriter and producer. That's the fun of music really, trying out these things and seeing if you can make them stick. 

I listen to new music by veteran artists and debate that with some people. I'm sure you have those fans that want their nostalgia, and then there are some people who will embrace the newer stuff. Do you find it’s a challenge to reach people with new songs?

Obviously, what we're looking for is, how do we somehow have one foot in the past and one foot into the future? We’ve got the best of all possible worlds because that has been the modus operandi of Billy Idol. 

You want to do things that are true to you, and you don't just want to try and do things that you're seeing there in the charts today. I think that we're achieving it with things like "Running From The Ghost" and "Cage" on this new EP. I think we’re managing to do both in a way. 

**Obviously, "Running From The Ghost" is about addiction, all the stuff that you went through, and in "Cage" you’re talking about  freeing yourself from a lot of personal shackles. Was there any one moment in your life that made you really thought I have to not let this weigh me down anymore?**

I mean, things like the motorcycle accident I had, that was a bit of a wake up call way back. It was 32 years ago. But there were things like that, years ago, that gradually made me think about what I was doing with my life. I didn't want to ruin it, really. I didn't want to throw it away, and it made [me] be less cavalier. 

I had to say to myself, about the drugs and stuff, that I've been there and I've done it. There’s no point in carrying on doing it. You couldn't get any higher. You didn't want to throw your life away casually, and I was close to doing that. It took me a bit of time, but then gradually I was able to get control of myself to a certain extent [with] drugs and everything. And I think Steve's done the same thing. We're on a similar path really, which has been great because we're in the same boat in terms of lyrics and stuff. 

So a lot of things like that were wake up calls. Even having grandchildren and just watching my daughter enlarging her family and everything; it just makes you really positive about things and want to show a positive side to how you're feeling, about where you're going. We've lived with the demons so long, we've found a way to live with them. We found a way to be at peace with our demons, in a way. Maybe not completely, but certainly to where we’re enjoying what we do and excited about it.

[When writing] "Running From The Ghost" it was easy to go, what was the ghost for us? At one point, we were very drug addicted in the '80s. And Steve in particular is super sober [now]. I mean, I still vape pot and stuff. I don’t know how he’s doing it, but it’s incredible. All I want to be able to do is have a couple of glasses of wine at a restaurant or something. I can do that now.

I think working with people that are super talented, you just feel confident. That is a big reason why you open up and express yourself more because you feel comfortable with what's around you.

Did you watch Danny Boyle's recent Sex Pistols mini-series?

I did, yes.

You had a couple of cameos; well, an actor who portrayed you did. How did you react to it? How accurate do you think it was in portraying that particular time period?

I love Jonesy’s book, I thought his book was incredible. It's probably one of the best bio books really. It was incredible and so open. I was looking forward to that a lot.

It was as if [the show] kind of stayed with Steve [Jones’ memoir] about halfway through, and then departed from it. [John] Lydon, for instance, was never someone I ever saw acting out; he's more like that today. I never saw him do something like jump up in the room and run around going crazy. The only time I saw him ever do that was when they signed the recording deal with Virgin in front of Buckingham Palace. Whereas Sid Vicious was always acting out; he was always doing something in a horrible way or shouting at someone. I don't remember John being like that. I remember him being much more introverted.

But then I watched interviews with some of the actors about coming to grips with the parts they were playing. And they were saying, we knew punk rock happened but just didn't know any of the details. So I thought well, there you go. If ["Pistol" is]  informing a lot of people who wouldn't know anything about punk rock, maybe that's what's good about it.

Maybe down the road John Lydon will get the chance to do John's version of the Pistols story. Maybe someone will go a lot deeper into it and it won't be so surface. But maybe you needed this just to get people back in the flow.

We had punk and metal over here in the States, but it feels like England it was legitimately more dangerous. British society was much more rigid.

It never went [as] mega in America. It went big in England. It exploded when the Pistols did that interview with [TV host Bill] Grundy, that lorry truck driver put his boot through his own TV, and all the national papers had "the filth and the fury" [headlines].

We went from being unknown to being known overnight. We waited a year, Generation X. We even told them [record labels] no for nine months to a year. Every record company wanted their own punk rock group. So it went really mega in England, and it affected the whole country – the style, the fashions, everything. I mean, the Ramones were massive in England. Devo had a No. 1 song [in England] with "Satisfaction" in '77. Actually, Devo was as big as or bigger than the Pistols.

You were ahead of the pop-punk thing that happened in the late '90s, and a lot of it became tongue-in-cheek by then. It didn't have the same sense of rebelliousness as the original movement. It was more pop.

It had become a style. There was a famous book in England called Revolt Into Style — and that's what had happened, a revolt that turned into style which then they were able to duplicate in their own way. Even recently, Billie Joe [Armstrong] did his own version of "Gimme Some Truth," the Lennon song we covered way back in 1977.

When we initially were making [punk] music, it hadn't become accepted yet. It was still dangerous and turned into a style that people were used to. We were still breaking barriers.

You have a band called Generation Sex with Steve Jones and Paul Cook. I assume you all have an easier time playing Pistols and Gen X songs together now and not worrying about getting spit on like back in the '70s?

Yeah, definitely. When I got to America I told the group I was putting it together, "No one spits at the audience."

We had five years of being spat on [in the UK], and it was revolting. And they spat at you if they liked you. If they didn't like it they smashed your gear up. One night, I remember I saw blood on my T-shirt, and I think Joe Strummer got meningitis when spit went in his mouth.

You had to go through a lot to become successful, it wasn't like you just kind of got up there and did a couple of gigs. I don't think some young rock bands really get that today.

With punk going so mega in England, we definitely got a leg up. We still had a lot of work to get where we got to, and rightly so because you find out that you need to do that. A lot of groups in the old days would be together three to five years before they ever made a record, and that time is really important. In a way, what was great about punk rock for me was it was very much a learning period. I really learned a lot [about] recording music and being in a group and even writing songs.

Then when I came to America, it was a flow, really. I also really started to know what I wanted Billy Idol to be. It took me a little bit, but I kind of knew what I wanted Billy Idol to be. And even that took a while to let it marinate.

You and Miley Cyrus have developed a good working relationship in the last several years. How do you think her fans have responded to you, and your fans have responded to her?

I think they're into it. It's more the record company that she had didn't really get "Night Crawling"— it was one of the best songs on Plastic Hearts, and I don't think they understood that. They wanted to go with Dua Lipa, they wanted to go with the modern, young acts, and I don't think they realized that that song was resonating with her fans. Which is a shame really because, with Andrew Watt producing, it's a hit song.

But at the same time, I enjoyed doing it. It came out really good and it's very Billy Idol. In fact, I think it’s more Billy Idol than Miley Cyrus. I think it shows you where Andrew Watt was. He was excited about doing a Billy Idol track. She's fun to work with. She’s a really great person and she works at her singing — I watched her rehearsing for the Super Bowl performance she gave. She rehearsed all Saturday morning, all Saturday afternoon, and Sunday morning and it was that afternoon. I have to admire her fortitude. She really cares.

I remember when you went on "Viva La Bam" back in 2005 and decided to give Bam Margera’s Lamborghini a new sunroof by taking a power saw to it. Did he own that car? Was that a rental?

I think it was his car.

Did he get over it later on?

He loved it. [Laughs] He’s got a wacky sense of humor. He’s fantastic, actually. I’m really sorry to see what he's been going through just lately. He's going through a lot, and I wish him the best. He's a fantastic person, and it's a shame that he's struggling so much with his addictions. I know what it's like. It's not easy.

Musically, what is the synergy like with you guys during the past 10 years, doing Kings and Queens of the Underground and this new stuff? What is your working relationship like now in this more sober, older, mature version of you two as opposed to what it was like back in the '80s?

In lots of ways it’s not so different because we always wrote the songs together, we always talked about what we're going to do together. It was just that we were getting high at the same time.We're just not getting [that way now] but we're doing all the same things.

We're still talking about things, still [planning] things:What are we going to do next? How are we going to find new people to work with? We want to find new producers. Let's be a little bit more timely about putting stuff out.That part of our relationship is the same, you know what I mean? That never got affected. We just happened to be overloading in the '80s.

The relationship’s… matured and it's carrying on being fruitful, and I think that's pretty amazing. Really, most people don't get to this place. Usually, they hate each other by now. [Laughs] We also give each other space. We're not stopping each other doing things outside of what we’re working on together. All of that enables us to carry on working together. I love and admire him. I respect him. He's been fantastic. I mean, just standing there on stage with him is always a treat. And he’s got an immensely great sense of humor. I think that's another reason why we can hang together after all this time because we've got the sense of humor to enable us to go forward.

There's a lot of fan reaction videos online, and I noticed a lot of younger women like "Rebel Yell" because, unlike a lot of other '80s alpha male rock tunes, you're talking about satisfying your lover.

It was about my girlfriend at the time, Perri Lister. It was about how great I thought she was, how much I was in love with her, and how great women are, how powerful they are.

It was a bit of a feminist anthem in a weird way. It was all about how relationships can free you and add a lot to your life. It was a cry of love, nothing to do with the Civil War or anything like that. Perri was a big part of my life, a big part of being Billy Idol. I wanted to write about it. I'm glad that's the effect.

Is there something you hope people get out of the songs you've been doing over the last 10 years? Do you find yourself putting out a message that keeps repeating?

Well, I suppose, if anything, is that you can come to terms with your life, you can keep a hold of it. You can work your dreams into reality in a way and, look, a million years later, still be enjoying it.

The only reason I'm singing about getting out of the cage is because I kicked out of the cage years ago. I joined Generation X when I said to my parents, "I'm leaving university, and I'm joining a punk rock group." And they didn't even know what a punk rock group was. Years ago, I’d write things for myself that put me on this path, so that maybe in 2022 I could sing something like "Cage" and be owning this territory and really having a good time. This is the life I wanted.

The original UK punk movement challenged societal norms. Despite all the craziness going on throughout the world, it seems like a lot of modern rock bands are afraid to do what you guys were doing. Do you think we'll see a shift in that?

Yeah.  Art usually reacts to things, so I would think eventually there will be a massive reaction to the pop music that’s taken over — the middle of the road music, and then this kind of right wing politics. There will be a massive reaction if there's not already one. I don’t know where it will come from exactly. You never know who's gonna do [it].

Living Legends: Nancy Sinatra Reflects On Creating "Power And Magic" In Studio, Developing A Legacy Beyond "Boots" & The Pop Stars She Wants To Work With

Country music's evolution is well represented in the 2023 GRAMMY nominees for Best Country Solo Performance. From crossover pop hooks to red-dirt outlaw roots, the genre's most celebrated elements are on full display — thanks to rising stars, leading ladies and country icons.

Longtime hitmaker Miranda Lambert delivered a soulful performance on the rootsy ballad "In His Arms," an arrangement as sparing as the windswept west Texas highlands where she co-wrote the song. Viral newcomer Zach Bryan dug into similar organic territory on the Oklahoma side of the Red River for "Something in the Orange," his voice accompanied with little more than an acoustic guitar.

Two of country's 2010s breakout stars are clearly still shining, too, as Maren Morris and Kelsea Ballerini both received Best Country Solo Performance GRAMMY nods. Morris channeled the determination that drove her leap-of-faith move from Texas to Nashville for the playful clap-along "Circles Around This Town," while Ballerini brought poppy hooks with a country edge on the infectiously upbeat "HEARTFIRST."

Rounding out the category is the one and only Willie Nelson, who paid tribute to his late friend Billy Joe Shaver with a cover of "Live Forever" — a fitting sentiment for the 89-year-old legend, who is approaching his eighth decade in the business. 

As the excitement builds for the 2023 GRAMMYs on Feb. 5, 2023, let's take a closer look at this year's nominees for Best Country Solo Performance.

Kelsea Ballerini — "HEARTFIRST"

In the tradition of Shania Twain, Faith Hill and Carrie Underwood, Kelsea Ballerini represents Nashville's sunnier side — and her single "HEARTFIRST" is a slice of bright, uptempo, confectionary country-pop for the ages.

Ballerini sings about leaning into a carefree crush with her heart on her sleeve, pushing aside her reservations and taking a risk on love at first sight. The scene plays out in a bar room and a back seat, as she sweeps nimbly through the verses and into a shimmering chorus, when the narrator decides she's ready to "wake up in your T-shirt." 

There are enough steel guitar licks to let you know you're listening to a country song, but the story and melody are universal. "HEARTFIRST" is Ballerini's third GRAMMY nod, but first in the Best Country Solo Performance category.

Zach Bryan — "Something In The Orange"

Zach Bryan blew into Music City seemingly from nowhere in 2017, when his original song "Heading South" — recorded on an iPhone — went viral. Then an active officer in the U.S. Navy, the Oklahoma native chased his muse through music during his downtime, striking a chord with country music fans on stark songs led by his acoustic guitar and affecting vocals.

After his honorable discharge in 2021, Bryan began his music career in earnest, and in 2022 released "Something in the Orange," a haunting ballad that stakes a convincing claim to the territory between Tyler Childers and Jason Isbell in both sonics and songwriting. Slashing slide guitar drives home the song's heartbreak, as Bryan pines for a lover whose tail lights have long since vanished over the horizon. 

"Something In The Orange" marks Bryan's first-ever GRAMMY nomination.

Miranda Lambert — "In His Arms"

Miranda Lambert is the rare, chart-topping contemporary country artist who does more than pay lip service to the genre's rural American roots. "In His Arms" originally surfaced on 2021's The Marfa Tapes, a casual recording Lambert made with Jack Ingram and Jon Randall in Marfa, Texas — a tiny arts enclave in the middle of the west Texas high desert.

In this proper studio version — recorded for her 2022 album, Palomino — Lambert retains the structure and organic feel of the mostly acoustic song; light percussion and soothing atmospherics keep her emotive vocals front and center. A native Texan herself, Lambert sounds fully at home on "In His Arms."

Lambert is the only Best Country Solo Performance nominee who is nominated in all four Country Field categories in 2023. To date, Miranda Lambert has won 3 GRAMMYs and received 27 nominations overall. 

Maren Morris — "Circles Around This Town"

When Maren Morris found herself uninspired and dealing with writer's block, she went back to what inspired her to move to Nashville nearly a decade ago — and out came "Circles Around This Town," the lead single from her 2022 album Humble Quest.

Written in one of her first in-person songwriting sessions since the pandemic, Morris has called "Circles Around This Town" her "most autobiographical song" to date; she even recreated her own teenage bedroom for the song's video. As she looks back to her Texas beginnings and the life she left for Nashville, Morris' voice soars over anthemic, yet easygoing production. 

Morris last won a GRAMMY for Best Country Solo Performance in 2017, when her song "My Church" earned the singer her first GRAMMY. To date, Maren Morris has won one GRAMMY and received 17 nominations overall.

Willie Nelson — "Live Forever"

Country music icon Willie Nelson is no stranger to the GRAMMYs, and this year he aims to add to his collection of 10 gramophones. He earned another three nominations for 2023 — bringing his career total to 56 — including a Best Country Solo Performance nod for "Live Forever."

Nelson's performance of "Live Forever," the lead track of the 2022 tribute album Live Forever: A Tribute to Billy Joe Shaver, is a faithful rendition of Shaver's signature song. Still, Nelson puts his own twist on the tune, recruiting Lucinda Williams for backing vocals and echoing the melody with the inimitable tone of his nylon-string Martin guitar. 

Shaver, an outlaw country pioneer who passed in 2020 at 81 years old, never had any hits of his own during his lifetime. But plenty of his songs were still heard, thanks to stars like Elvis Presley, Kris Kristofferson and Waylon Jennings. Nelson was a longtime friend and frequent collaborator of Shaver's — and now has a GRAMMY nom to show for it.

2023 GRAMMY Nominations: See The Complete Nominees List