Category: News

Following her beloved 2024 album For Your Consideration, Empress Of is back with new music. There’s no new album cycle yet, but her latest, “Little Secret,” comes from the soundtrack of the second season of the Apple TV+ series The Buccaneers

Also appearing on the soundtrack album are Kacy Hill, Suki Waterhouse, Madi Diaz, Holly Humberstone, and more.

Meanwhile, Empress Of has some big plans for later this year, as she’s set to be one of the openers (alongside Blood Orange, The Japanese House, Nilüfer Yanya, Chanel Beads, Jim-E Stack, and Oklou) on Lorde’s tour.

Listen to “Little Secret” above and check out the full soundtrack tracklist below.

The Buccaneers: S2 (Apple TV+ Original Series Soundtrack) Tracklist

Disc 1

1. “Main Title Remix” (remix of “North American Scum” Feat. Miya Folick by Emily Kokal) (Remixed by Chloé Caillet)
2. Empress Of — “Little Secret”
3. Kacy Hill — “Chasing After You”
4. Suki Waterhouse — “Featherweight”
5. Jade Bird — “Can’t Forget”
6. Madi Diaz — “Something To Burn”
7. Holly Humberstone — “Miss You To Death”
8. BEKA — “Worry”
9. Jana Diab — “Never The Same”
10. Emily Kokal — “What Would We Do”
11. Emily Kokal — “2U”

Disc 2

1. Avawaves — “Wedding”
2. Avawaves — “Aunt Nell”
3. Avawaves — “Lizzy”
4. Avawaves — “Affairs”
5. Avawaves — “The Institution”
6. Avawaves — “To Have A Voice”

The Buccaneers: S2 (Apple TV+ Original Series Soundtrack) is out 6/18 via Interscope.

No doubt about it, Sylvester Stallone’s most recent career act has been best summed up by his Tulsa King run. The Taylor Sheridan series puts the former Rocky and Rambo frontman in fish-out-of-water territory as Dwight “The General” Manfredi, who believed that he’d be rewarded by his loyalty (after serving a substantial prison sentence) but instead found himself shipped off to Oklahoma to build a new criminal empire. The series quickly proved to be a hit on Paramount+ and ran with a speedily-spun second season filmed far away (Atlanta) from the harsh Oklahoma climate, and the addition of Frank Grillo as rival gangster Bill Bevilaqua only added to the ratings boon.

Once a third season was confirmed, it emerged that Garrett Hedlund would be returning alongside Vincent Piazza, Annabella Sciorra, and Neal McDonough. Also look for Robert Patrick, Beau Knapp, Bella Heathcote, Dana Delaney, Martin Starr, and Jay Will. A recent Variety scoop also indicated that Kevin Pollak joined as “an FBI agent who has an axe to grind,” and with social media clues indicating that production is running fast and furious, logistics on when you can watch this should be the next concern.

Does Tulsa King Season 3 Have A Release Date Yet On Paramount+?

Not yet. However, with this series not requiring a lengthy post production phase, a fall arrival seems more than possible, which would be welcome during the current Sheridrought while his viewers await more Yellowstone lore with The Madison and 1944 spin offs.

For the moment, the most enlightening peeks at Tulsa King‘s third season can be found in Frank Grillo’s Instagrammed belt buckle and Stallone wearing the snazziest suit known to mankind. Also, Neil McDonough let slip to Collider that he has now graduated to being a more villainous force as Oklahoma governor:

“Now I play the governor on this season of Tulsa King. We were with David Glasser [executive producer] last year, and everybody said, ‘Tell him your idea. Tell him your idea.’ I said, ‘David, I’d like to come back as the governor next year.’ He thought about it and said, ‘That’s a good idea.’ I didn’t hear anything for two months… and then I get the call, ‘Okay, you’re back in Tulsa King again this year. You’ll start in two weeks.’ I read the script, and on the first page: Cal Thresher becoming governor of the great state of Oklahoma.”

Dwight Manfredi, you’re in (more) trouble.

Last year’s The Bikeriders didn’t shy away from the sexiness of biker pursuits, including an unconventional love triangle involving Tom Hardy and Austin Butler, but Pillion is here to take biker romance straight into kinky territory. That promise is only heightened by Alexander Skarsgård’s starring role in this movie, which in retrospect might be a natural progression after Brandon Cronenberg’s Infinity Pool, in which Skarsgård spent some time on a leash, and Robert Eggers’ The Northman, in which he infamously threw himself into a naked battle scene atop a volcano.

Whew. It’s little wonder why Skarsgård didn’t mind downshifting intensity in Murderbot to cleanse his palate after Pillion, but that isn’t to say that he didn’t enjoy making the A24 film that recently debuted at Cannes. Quite the contrary, so let’s unlock the chains on what to expect.

Plot

The A24 stamp of approval arrived with the Cornerstone Films title’s October 2024 acquisition, and at Cannes, Pillion received a 7-minute standing ovation that seemingly places it above several other premiering titles this year. What is Pillion about? The sparse description for the Harry Lighton-directed queer love story reads as follows: “A directionless man is swept off his feet when an enigmatic, impossibly handsome biker takes him on as his submissive.”

That directionless dude would be Colin, portrayed by Harry Melling (The Queen’s Gambit, The Pale Blue Eye), who finds himself in an unorthodox romance with Ray, an imposing biker portrayed by Alexander Skarsgård (True Blood, Big Little Lies). Hints suggest that Ray will open up more as the film progresses, yet an introductory encounter between Ray and Colin includes the Dom requiring the sub to sleep at the foot of his bed. Naturally, the more sensational aspects of the movie involve the sexual relationship between the two men and the movie’s orgy scenes.

Yes, you definitely read that correctly. Skarsgård got frank with Deadline about how much he enjoyed that part of the gig:

“The sex scenes, the orgy scenes were very fun and playful. Robbie, the intimacy coordinator, was fantastic in helping because it got messy. There’s lots of people and lots of moving parts. But he was terrific in just orchestrating, choreographing it and also knowing when to step back and let us go with it and when to kind of step in. Those were exciting days, absolutely.”

The script hails from Harry Lighton as well with Cornerstone Films initially marketing the story as “equally compelling and shocking as it is funny and entertaining.” Lighton recently told Vanity Fair that the film’s graphic nature meant that certain practicalities emerged, and “[o]nce we got into the nitty-gritty, it emerges that you can’t just chuck a load of dicks on screen.” Sentiment ended up ruling some moments over sensationalism, but naturally, Skarsgård expressed that he was “very, very comfortable” with the nudity:

“I knew that it was going to be graphic, and Harry was very clear on his vision for it—when and how nudity was going to be depicted. I felt that it really served the story, and it made sense to me. I was very, very comfortable with all that. We had a really terrific intimacy coordinator named Robbie [Taylor Hunt] who was there with us the whole way.”

As for Melling, he revealed that choreography was key for the orgy scenes, and Skarsgård was “the most generous, dreamy scene partner, so what could have been quite a daunting experience couldn’t have been more different.”

Cast

Skarsgård and Melling take center stage with other cast members including Anthony Welsh, Douglas Hodge, Billy King, Lesley Sharp, Jake Sharp, and Brian Martin.

Release Date

A24 hasn’t revealed a theatrical release date yet for Pillion, which made a splash at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

Trailer

We want to see a trailer as bad as the rest of the world, but for now, memory lane exists with Skarsgård telling Conan how much he enjoys being naked.

Following 2023’s I Told Them…, Burna Boy is back: Today (May 22), he announced No Sign Of Weakness, a new album. The news is also accompanied by “TaTaTa,” a new single featuring Travis Scott. A video for the track is set to follow tomorrow.

A press release notes the album showcases “Burna Boy’s larger-than-life charisma and unmistakable fusion of global influences with melodic pop sensibility.”

No tracklist has been revealed yet (no album cover either), but some of Burna’s recent post-I Told Them… singles include “Bundle By Bundle” (a collab with Uproxx cover star Chlöe), “Update,” and “Sweet Love.”

Speaking of Chlöe, she and Burna faced some dating rumors late last year, when the two were spotted in Burna’s home of Nigeria. They were seen enjoying Nigerian nightlife together and seemed to be physically comfortable with each other. Ultimately, though, those rumors didn’t amount to much, as “Bundle By Bundle” was released not long after the sighting and their night out was attributed to the two co-workers getting more familiar with each other. “Bundle By Bundle” ended up getting its own video, too.

Listen to “TaTaTa” above.

No Sign Of Weakness is out 7/10 via Spaceship/Bad Habit/Atlantic. Find more information here.

It’s somewhat telling that Kendrick Lamar’s latest and current tour is co-headlined by SZA. The reluctant superstar has always seemed to have one foot out of the rap spotlight, dropping records more sporadically in the past five years than in his early career. When he does drop, his projects seem distinctly disinterested in courting public favor; His last two albums were a therapeutic meditation on his personal growth over the past decade, and an ode to the muscle car he wanted growing up, respectively.

In between those projects, he dedicated some of his biggest performances to sharing his spotlight with little cousin Baby Keem (at Tyler The Creator’s Camp Flog Gnaw Carnival in 2024), SZA (on his GNX tour and his controversial but enlightening Super Bowl Halftime Show), and seemingly, the whole of the Los Angeles rap scene (at his aptly named Kendrick & Friends concert, just down the street from the GNX tour venue for his Los Angeles dates, SoFi Stadium).

Lately, it has seemed more and more like in addition to his weariness (and wariness) of stardom, he’s as disinterested in shying away from the role of superstar, and he has been in playing it. Instead, he’s entered something of a “big bro” era, using what he’s learned in his experiences to shepherd the next generation of iconoclastic talents in their own growth.

Ironically, this is after he spent the last year spitting venom at one of the artists who arguably tried to do the same for him. But clearly, the way in which Drake tried to mentor him back in 2011 rubbed him the wrong way, leaving him with not only a lifelong disdain for his “Poetic Justice” collaborator, but apparently also a burning desire to do the opposite for his own proteges.

Speaking of K. Dot’s arch nemesis, despite Kendrick’s protests that he is done with their feud, plenty of airtime during the Grand National set is dedicated to both songs from their contentious mid-year exchange and nods to their complicated history. The aforementioned “Poetic Justice” was featured on Wednesday, as was “Euphoria,” the track that arguably buried Drake before dragging him to hell on “Meet The Grahams.”

But what I was most interested in was how Kendrick would manage the “joint tour” billing with SZA. While other joint tours, like Drake and J. Cole’s It’s All A Blur tour, followed a relatively standard opener/headliner format, I knew Kendrick wouldn’t make it a point to push the shared top billing unless there was an elegant solution involved. There was: While Kendrick did indeed take the lead, every 20 minutes or so, he ceded a mini-set to his frequent collaborator, alternating throughout the evening until a three-song run of their biggest collabs: “Doves In The Wind,” “All The Stars,” and “Love” (with SZA filling in for Zacari).

Besides feeding at least half of the set time to SZA, Kendrick also allowed her the more elaborate staging. Where his stage props were resolutely restrained to the titular vehicle for which the tour is named (and a giant version toward the finale), SZA’s were much more interactive. From performing atop an elevated platform to donning a suspension harness to literally play out her fairy fantasy, floating over a transformative cocoon, and riding what my partner fondly described as the “Ant Mobile,” SZA undoubtedly earned her co-headlining status. Despite neither artist’s sets featuring any guest stars, SZA also surprised fans with an appearance from Lizzo, with whom she sang their duet, “Special.”

While Kendrick’s sets more or less followed the tracklist of his new album, GNX, with catalog hits like “Alright,” “Don’t Kill My Vibe,” and “Humble” scattered throughout, SZA’s sets were fittingly more free-flowing, jumping back and forth between fan favorites like “Consideration,” “Snooze,” and “Kill Bill.” But the best parts were when Kendrick and SZA shared the stage, which they did for standouts like “30 For 30” and “Luther.” There’s a magnetic chemistry between the two, which becomes all the more undeniable when they perform together live. It’s enough to make fans even hungrier for the potential joint project the duo teased as they embarked on the tour.

Or, at the very least, more interested in Kendrick’s next career evolution. If it is true that he’d rather take a backseat (or at least the co-pilot’s chair) to his peers and contemporaries, then it’ll be fascinating to watch what those artists are able to accomplish with his guidance and support. And if it turns out that he has a more grand (sorry) vision for his own future, triumphantly returning to his high-concept creations and expectation defying genre experiments, well then, that’d be just fine, too. Just as long as he continues to make time to be the artistic big bro that the rap business needs right now, because in that respect, he’s batting a thousand.

Chris Stapleton‘s most recent album, Higher, came out in 2023. Since then, the country powerhouse has contributed songs to two other projects: “California Sober” on Post Malone’s F-1 Trillion, and now “Bad As I Used To Be” for F1 The Album. The man loves albums starting with “F1”!

“Bad As I Used To Be” is the latest single from the soundtrack for the Joseph Kosinski film F1, following “Lose My Mind” by Don Toliver and Doja Cat and “Messy” by Rosé. It’s Stapleton at his down and dirty; the swampy riff would sound right at home at the Double Deuce.

You can listen to “Bad As I Used To Be” above, and check out the F1 The Album tracklist below.

F1 The Album Tracklist

1. Don Toliver — “Lose My Mind” Feat. Doja Cat
2. Dom Dolla — “No Room For A Saint” Feat. Nathan Nicholson
3. Ed Sheeran — “Drive”
4. Tate McRae — “Just Keep Watching”
5. Rosé — “Messy”
6. Burna Boy — “Don’t Let Me Drown”
7. Roddy Ricch — “Underdog”
8. Raye — “Grandma Calls The Boy Bad News”
9. Chris Stapleton — “Bad As I Used To Be”
10. Myke Towers — “Baja California”
11. Tiësto & Sexyy Red — “OMG!”
12. Madison Beer — “All At Once”
13. Peggy Gou — “D.A.N.C.E”
14. PAWSA — “DOUBLE C”
15. Mr Eazi — “Attention”
16. Darkoo — “Give Me Love”
17. Obongjayar — “Gasoline”

F1 The Album is out 6/27 via Atlantic Records. Find more information here.

It’s a good time to be a Dexter aficionado. The recent Original Sin prequel series, the upcoming Resurrection sequel show, and the in-the-works Trinity Killer spin off are more than viewers could have dreamed of back when Michael C. Hall’s serial killer sailed into a hurricane. Those spin offs (along with one season of New Blood) are (and will be) available on Showtime and through the Paramount+ with Showtime streaming package, and that train won’t be stopping anytime soon with word that Resurrection aims to go for multiple seasons.

Yet the bread and butter for franchise fans has been knowing that Netflix has been hosting the original series’ eight seasons on an on-and-off basis. Most recently, Dexter returned to the streaming service in June 2024, and word on the internet street is that the show might be leaving Netflix nearly as soon as it made its most recent arrival.

Is Dexter Leaving Netflix Ahead Of Dexter: Resurrection?

Unconfirmed. Netflix’s June 2025 listings do not point toward a departure for the series, although plenty of websites and subforums are stating that claim. Is it possible that the series isindeed departing Netflix after the latest year-long run? Sure. Yet neither Netflix nor Showtime has made a current statement to that effect.

If the departure does happen, then of course Dexter fans will want to know where they can watch Michael C. Hall do his impish thing with his Dark Passenger in tow. That would be Paramount+, where the Paramount+ With Showtime package is currently running $12.99 per month.

Kendrick Lamar and SZA’s Grand National Tour is rolling along, and last night (May 21), it brought the pair to SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California. During SZA’s time on stage, she made room for a special guest: Lizzo, who came out and sang their collaboration “Special.” Find clips of that here, here, and here.

Earlier this year, Lizzo revealed she and SZA nearly started a band called P*ssy Lasers, saying, “We just always been friends, and it’s a sacred space for me in this industry. We [had] this little period of time when we were just linking up in the studio. One particular night, mind you, we were gonna start a rock band, called P*ssy Lasers. We were going to start a rock band called P*ssy Lasers with an incredible other artist who I don’t know if she even wants to be mentioned, so I’m not going to mention her.”

Check out the upcoming Grand National Tour dates below.

Kendrick Lamar And SZA’s 2025 Tour Dates: Grand National Tour

05/23 — Los Angeles, CA @ SoFi Stadium
05/27 — Glendale, AZ @ State Farm Stadium
05/29 — San Francisco, CA @ Oracle Park
05/31 — Las Vegas, NV @ Allegiant Stadium
06/04 — St. Louis, MO @ The Dome at America’s Center
06/06 — Chicago, IL @ Soldier Field
06/10 — Detroit, MI @ Ford Field
06/12 — Toronto, ON @ Rogers Centre
06/16 — Hershey, PA @ Hersheypark Stadium
06/18 — Washington, DC @ Northwest Stadium
07/02 — Cologne, Germany @ RheinEnergieSTADION
07/04 — Frankfurt, Germany @ Deutsche Bank Park
07/08 — Glasgow, UK @ Hampden Park
07/10 — Birmingham, UK @ Villa Park
07/13 — Amsterdam, Netherlands @ Johan Cruijff ArenA
07/15 — Paris, France @ Paris La Défense Arena
07/19 — Cardiff, UK @ Principality Stadium
07/22 — London, UK @ Tottenham Hotspur Stadium
07/27 — Lisbon, Portugal @ Estadio do Restelo
07/30 — Barcelona, Spain @ Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys
08/02 — Rome, Italy @ Stadio Olimpico
08/06 — Warsaw, Poland @ PGE Narodowy
08/09 — Stockholm, Sweden @ 3Arena

Over the past few years, Miley Cyrus has performed live here and there, but there haven’t been any major tours. It doesn’t look like one will happen soon either.

In a new interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe, Cyrus explained why she’s not touring anymore, attributing it to a couple of primary reasons: Her sobriety journey and health issues.

She said:

“The physicality of what I’m doing, the athleticism, the chemicals in your body that are being produced when you’re at that level of… again, we talked about stress, it’s not bad, but there just is a level of high stress. And so working from the inside out, there would have to be… I have certain protocols that keep me… again, we talked about the sobriety. That’s super important to me. So part of that is keeping myself mentally, physically, spiritually, and emotionally well, and I want to emphasize the physically because of how taxing a physical live performance is.”

From there, she went on to speak about a health condition that affects her vocal cords:

“And something I wanted to mention to you: So I had the Reinke’s Edema, which is something that [is] abuse of the vocal cords. And being 21 and staying up and drinking and smoking and partying after every show does not help. But also in my case, it does not cause it. So my voice always sounded like this. It’s a part of my unique anatomy, this is what I look like. So I have this very large polyp on my vocal cord, which has given me a lot of the tone and the texture that has made me who I am, but it’s extremely difficult to perform with because it’s like running a marathon with ankle weights on. So even when I’m talking sometimes, at the end of the day I’ll call my mom and she’ll go, ‘Oh, you sound like you’re talking through a radio.’ And that’s how you know I’m really tired because it creates that ultimate vocal fry.”

Watch the full interview above.

The Philadelphia band Florry first came across my radar in 2023, upon the release of their third album, The Holey Bible. Led by singer-songwriter Francie Medosch, who started the project when she was a teenager, Florry is part of the same country-rock solar system that includes Wednesday and MJ Lenderman (whose 2022 LP Boat Songs was put out by Florry’s label, the rising indie Dear Life Records). What set The Holey Bible apart was its ragged, blown-out sound. It was more like a bootleg of studio jams than a normal “proper” album. The aesthetic was summed up by the title of the first single: “Drunk And High.”

What I loved is that The Holey Bible had nothing in common with the popular indie albums of the time, which tended to be quieter and more orchestrated. Florry, in contrast, is like a down-home band from the early ’70s, reminiscent of “ditch” era Neil Young or the country numbers from Exile On Main Street. (Or the outtakes from that album too sloppy to see the light of day.) Even better, The Holey Bible was an indie-rock record that actually rocked.

So, it was no surprise to hear Medosch go on about her formative influences (Bob Dylan and Lucinda Williams) or the go-to soundtrack in the tour van (the Rolling Stones’ Some Girls: Live In Texas ’78) during a Zoom interview earlier this month. Nor was I shocked to learn that one of her day jobs is working in a dispensary. (“I like to get high,” she deadpanned.) You can hear all that on the latest Florry record due this Friday, Sounds Like…, which is slightly less anarchic than The Holey Bible but thankfully nowhere close to slick.

“I like how it can be really chaotic but tight at the same time. Loose but in the pocket is really cool to me,” she said. “That’s my big thing live. I love [Dylan’s] Rolling Thunder Revue. I had a huge obsession with that. I own probably six different bootlegs from that tour. When I first started listening to that, I was so blown away. It really clicked in my head like, ‘Okay, I need at least six people in this band.’”

Guitars, fiddles, pedal steel, punch-drunk drums – they all create a murky wall of sound on Sounds Like… that doesn’t quite obscure Medosch’s storytelling lyrics. More than ever, she set out to write “epic songs” that dwell on slice-of-life vignettes, like the cataclysmic car accident recounted in “Truck Flipped Over ’19” (which sounds like Waylon Jennings’ heretofore secret Black Sabbath phase) or the road-trip romance of “Pretty Eyes Lorraine” (a biker-girl spin on “Far Away Eyes”).

It’s a big leap for an artist who’s been putting out music since she was 14. Which might also explain why Medosch on Sounds Like… already has the vibe of a grizzled classic-rock vet at age 24.

When did you start really getting into music?

I was 15 when I started going to shows in West Philly. Funny enough, that’s when I met Jon Samuels from Dear Life Records. He used to buy me 40s.

Were you sneaking in?

It was mostly house shows I would go to. There was a great West Philly house show scene. It was really in its prime. In 2013, there was this whole scene of harder punk bands and then that kind of died down and gave way to this house show scene that was a little softer. I got to see a lot of cool bands at that time.

That was when Philly became the capital city of American indie rock for a while.

There were three years where everyone who graduated from Bard College or possibly lived in Brooklyn was starting to move to Philly and starting bands and shit. It was fun. There was a lot of new music that I wouldn’t have thought to listen to. It was definitely aligning with the music I was finding on blogs. I didn’t have a phone until I was a senior in high school, so I would just look at blogs and go to shows to find out about music. Or it was the music that my mom showed me.

What was your mom into?

When I was a kid, my mom really liked Wilco and Lucinda [Williams] and a lot of hip-hop and Elvis Costello and all these different types of music. She liked Big Star and stuff. And I saved that in my head basically my whole childhood. And then my stepdad, he is kind of a musical savant. He doesn’t play any instruments, but he just knows everything. He knows a lot about jazz and he showed me a lot of Bob Dylan stuff. When I was 14, he bought the Another Self Portrait box set and that opened up a lot of my musical world.

That’s a fascinating Dylan era to start with, given that Self Portrait for years was considered the worst Dylan album. And then that perception started to shift with that box set.

Definitely. At that time I had a copy of New Morning and I would listen to that every day. I loved that vibe, just because the mid-’60s heroin stuff, I think, freaked me out. I just didn’t get it. “I Want You” and “4th Time Around,” those were pretty songs to me. But I didn’t understand what he was doing. So, I got really attached to that early ’70s, late ’60s kind of country vibe that he did.

I’m kind of a Bob Dylan purist. I listen to everything now, but back then, it was easy for me to get attached to that country stuff.

You can draw a direct line from those Dylan records to what you’re doing with Florry. But you were also going to these house shows. I imagine you must have also had a punk phase.

I was kind of a punk when I was a kid. I would do some bad things. I would leave on the weekends to go party in New York City and then I would come back on Sunday night really late. And I did definitely have a punk phase. When I was 19, I had a post-punk, no-wave-y kind of band in Philly, because there was a huge scene for that kind of music for a second in Brooklyn and Philly, and I was really influenced by that stuff. I was listening to a lot of Au Pairs and The Slits and that kind of stuff.

When did you start writing songs?

I was 13 or 14. I started writing instrumental music, kind of inspired by Animal Crossing music. I was really into Legend Of Zelda when I was a kid. Not so much anymore; It’s hard for me to play video games without falling asleep.

So, you were working on a keyboard?

On a keyboard and stuff on guitar, too. I was also really into bossa nova music at that time, so I mixed those two together.

Video game music and bossa nova?

Yeah, it went together well with the games I was playing.

You might have to revisit that.

I put out an album when I was 14. It’s all instrumental, looping, background music kind of stuff. And there was a tape on a UK label that’s still up on the internet. It’s actually mostly guitar, and I tried to use a bunch of different guitar noises. I tried to make drum noises out of distorted guitar. I’m proud of it because I was a little baby.

You really came to your own with Florry on The Holey Bible. That’s where the band started to have that loose and chaotic quality. How did you get to that place?

I didn’t play a lot of music during college, and I got really sick of typical indie rock, the stuff that people around me were making. I just started to not understand that music. At the same time, I was digging in more with these artists that I grew up listening to, and I was like, “There’s got to be a way I can play this kind of music, but still have it sound new.” Once I realized that I wanted to play that kind of music, I started focusing on writing that kind of music and evolving with it, and also the way I write the lyrics. Between The Holey Bible and this next one, I put way more thought into how I was writing. I wanted to write more stories than just personal silly songs or whatever. I wanted to have epic songs.

I think what attracted me to your band is that it wasn’t as orchestrated or muted as a lot of indie rock records in the early 2020s, especially singer-songwriter music. It had that loose swagger that I love from rock records of the early ’70s.

I didn’t want to do quiet folky stuff. I honestly just wanted to get away from the indie world and that kind of typical songwriting, and more into the alternative rock kind of world where it’s just more bombastic. I wanted to make a kick-ass kind of music, if that sounds goofy or whatever.

There’s also a southern flavor to Florry’s music, even though you’re from Pennsylvania.

Definitely. I mean, I love a lot of country music. That was a new obsession of mine. During the pandemic, I got really into pedal steel. I started playing pedal steel, and from there I started collecting all these records that I call “hot pickers” albums, which is just the Nashville A team making records that don’t have any singers on them. But they’re just really goofy and have crazy riffs the whole time and shit like that. And that definitely influenced the sound of my music a lot. And also, I listen to a lot of Neil Young, a lot of Bob Dylan, and I think for a while I tried singing like that more, which now I kind of shy away from that. I just try to sing the way I talk, I guess.

Sonically, your records have that “ditch”-era Neil vibe, for sure. Though I would say you push a little further into the murk. Your music sometimes sounds like the bootleg version of the “proper” record. Your vocals aren’t always clear in the mix, and everything feels a little woozy.

Yeah, I know what you mean.

To be clear, I mean that as a compliment.

I wanted it to sound fucked up. I wanted it to sound pretty murky and weird. I wanted people to be able to listen to it and be like, “Oh yeah, this sounds like Florry, the way I’ve seen them live,” but on record instead of in front of you.

When I wrote about The Holey Bible, I said that the band sounded wasted when they made it. Again, I meant that as a compliment. But are intoxicants literally part of your recording process?

Me and John Murray smoke a lot of weed. I work at a dispensary, so that’s my other job, and I like to get high. I’m actually taking a break from smoking weed and cigarettes right now just for my voice. But yeah, a lot of the band likes to drink and smoke weed and stuff like that. When we’re recording, we like to have a couple beers or whatever just to get the vibe right.

Have you ever tried honey slides?

I have not tried honey slides, but I’ve had a lot of people say I should.

It sounds like a nightmare.

Just what people said about making On The Beach, it sounds scary.

You recently moved from Philly to Vermont. Has that affected your songwriting?

Yeah. I started working on music that I eventually want to release under my own name, and I’ve been synthesizing genres that Florry doesn’t really touch. Stuff like classical and jazz music and children’s music and traditional folk music. I’ve actually been writing a lot of children’s-oriented music that’s a bit more whimsical and about life lessons and stuff like that, just because it’s fun to write that kind of music. And then I’ve been trying to write and incorporate more jazz and classical and stuff into it.

I got really obsessed with NRBQ, and for years, I’ve been wondering if there was any music that did what they did, where you’re synthesizing rock and rockabilly and old blues and jazz music to this crazy degree. Then I found out about them and I was like, “Wow, I’ve been searching for this band for years, and I finally found it.” And from there it’s inspired me so much to listen to the way they play live and all the different ways that they approach songwriting. That’s been hugely influential for some of this new stuff.

Sounds Like… is out 5/23 via Dear Life Records. Find more information here.