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Rihanna’s Dream Collaborator Is Billie Eilish, Who Once Called Her ‘The Hottest Person To Ever Exist In The History Of The World’

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Given that Rihanna is a massive global star, she’s collaborated with so many people at this point in her music career. That said, it’s been nearly a decade since her latest album, 2016’s Anti, and since then, a whole generation of music stars has emerged. One of these new icons has caught Rihanna’s eye: Billie Eilish.

In a recent interview (video here), Rihanna was asked who her “dream collaborator” is, and she said, “If I could only do a song with Billie Eilish. Mmm-mmm… she’s so good.”

Eilish hasn’t publicly responded to this situation, but she’ll likely be over the moon when she hears about it, as she’s a longtime Rihanna stan.

Last year, Eilish declared, “I think that I decided the other day that I think she’s the hottest person to ever exist in the history of the world.”

In a 2019 interview, she said, “Who would I want to meet? Um… Rihanna. But, like, only if she would want to, because my entire life, I’ve never even wanted to meet my idols because I never wanted to bother then.” When the interviewer insisted Rihanna would “love” to meet Eilish “and then maybe work together,” Eilish responded, “I would die a million times.”

In a 2019 Billboard interview, she spoke about what she admires about Rihanna:

“People like her and like Childish Gambino, Tyler [The Creator] and Kanye — [there’s] not just one thing that they’re known for. They take what they have and actually turn it into more. That’s what I’ve always wanted to do. I really want to design shoes, and I really want to f*cking design a car. I direct my own videos and edit them myself most of the time, so hopefully more of that. I think Rihanna is f*cking murdering it. Everyone who is like, ‘Stop with the [Fenty] brand and put out more music,’ I think, ‘Shut the f*ck up.’ She is doing exactly what she needs to do, and that’s fire. Yeah, we want new Rihanna music, but we also want Rihanna. Only props to her.”

So, basically, don’t rule out this collaboration actually happening at some point.

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Olivia Rodrigo Bid Farewell To The ‘Guts World Tour’ With Matching Tattoos And A ‘C U Next Tour’ Shirt

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Olivia Rodrigo‘s Guts World Tour kicked off in February 2024. It came to an end earlier this week, during an eventful few nights in Sydney, Australia. The “Get Him Back!” singer commemorated the end of the Guts live era (minus a few random festival dates in 2025) in a note on Instagram.

“That’s a wrap on the GUTS World Tour! 95 shows, 22 countries, and a few matching tattoos! Words cannot describe how lucky I feel to have been able to travel all around the world playing these songs with the most extraordinary group of people,” she wrote. “I’ll never forget this experience and all the sweet memories we made on the road. Thank you so much to everyone who bought a ticket and sang and screamed and jumped with me. Sharing these nights with y’all has been a real honor.” She ended the message with a plug for the Olivia Rodrigo: Guts World Tour concert film coming to Netflix on October 29.

Rodrigo also shared photos from along the Guts tour, including one of herself and one of her dancers, Alex White, showing off their matching tattoos and another where someone (possibly Olivia herself?) is wearing a “C U Next Tour.”

It works better if you see it, which you can do right here.

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Tyler The Creator Is Releasing His Album ‘Chromakopia’ At An Odd Time (But Not Before His Giant Listening Party)

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Tyler The Creator has kept the promotional cycle for his new album Chromakopia short and sweet. He officially announced the project last week, and it’ll be out on October 28. Yes, that’s a Monday, so the project isn’t coming out on a Friday like most major new releases do.

Not only is the album coming out on Monday, but Tyler announced yesterday (October 23) that it’s coming out at 6 a.m. ET that day… again, different from the midnight releases of most projects.

On top of that, Tyler is also hosting a listening party. He announced that today, explaining on social media, “Los Angeles I’m playing my album in full for you at the Intuit Dome. I will not be performing, I will be standing in the middle of the venue lip syncing to the new sounds. This event costs $5.”

Doors for the show are at 7 p.m. PT and the event starts at 8. As for those $5 tickets, there’s an American Express pre-sale at 9 a.m. PT on October 25, followed by a general on-sale at 10 a.m. PT. More information is available on the album website.

Tyler seems to have had a change of heart when it comes to the listening party strategy. Kanye West has notably taken to hosting these types of events in recent years, and in response to a recent one, Tyler commented, “n**** u was right there just say the words!!!!!!!! [heart-eyes emojis].”

Chromakopia is out 10/28 via Columbia Records. Find more information here.

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The NBA Cup Courts Are Way Better This Season

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Charlotte Hornets

One of the more unpopular aspects of the NBA Cup during its inaugural season came via the courts. While players would complain about an inability to keep their footing on them, fans had some major gripes about how they looked on television, whether that was due to the cumbersome stripe through the middle of the floor or the fact that some teams would go with a color that didn’t show well on the screen — the Miami Heat were a good example of this, as there was a whole lot of red in the design of their court.

On Thursday, the league unveiled the courts for this season’s tournament. In a piece by Mike Vorkunov of The Athletic, fans got to see all 30 of the floors that will be on their screen during tournament nights, all of which got rid of the stripe through the middle of the floor.

Via NBA/The Athletic

As Vorkunov explained, the league got rid of the stripe in the middle of the floor and replaced it with three circles that are designed to “represent the three NBA Cup stages.” And apparently, the league went through a process that included firing up NBA 2K to get a sense of how these will look on television.

Prater, the company the NBA uses to put a finish on its courts, uses drones to give the league a real-time view of the courts as it paints them, and sends along photos as well. The NBA then printed out half-court versions of each court in vinyl and laid them out on a court in Phoenix to do broadcast tests to assess how they looked. Finally, they then used the video game NBA2K to simulate games with the court and get another perspective on how they would look on TV screens.

What is unclear is how players will feel on the courts. For example, Jaylen Brown of the Boston Celtics slipped and tweaked his groin on a tournament court, and called the way that they played “unacceptable.” We’ll have to wait and see if this remains the case when the NBA Cup begins on Nov. 12.

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Will There Be A ‘Teacup’ Season 2 From James Wan And Ian McCulloch?

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Peacock

The James Wan-produced Teacup is currently tearing through an initial eight-episode season, which launched on Oct. 10 with weekly two-episode drops set to conclude on Oct. 31. So, the season hasn’t yet finished streaming, and we mostly don’t know who will live or die (although the unfortunate Claire, portrayed by Holly A. Morris, already let the audience know what happens when someone crosses the ominously-drawn line), but viewers are already wondering whether the Peacock series will continue.

Will There Be A Teacup Season 2?

Showrunner Ian McCulloch spoke with SFX Magazine and sounds pretty confident that at least two more seasons are possible, although those stories still need to be crafted, if the viewership is there:

“I’ll be perfectly honest with you, I don’t know what happens in season 2. And I don’t know what happens in season 3. But I know that the stakes are high enough. The challenge will be, how do you keep it the same show? But I think you’ll see at the end of the season: ‘Oh, okay, I see where they’re going.’ If we were so lucky, then we’ll dive back in.”

It’s worth noting that the series, which follows residents in rural Georgia fighting against what follows after a gas-masked dude draws those aforementioned boundaries, strips down the ideas behind Robert McCammon’s Stinger novel to focus only on a few characters. And that leaves plenty more source material for further onscreen inspiration.

McCulloch previously stressed the minimalism of the approach that James Wan called also “so big and scary,” but the localized focus of this story obviously provides a launching-off opportunity to follow other characters, no matter what has happened (and will happen) to characters portrayed by Yvonne Strahovski, Scott Speedman, and Chaske Spencer.

Draw those blinds, people. Peacock’s Teacup streams new episodes on Thursdays.

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Beyoncé Will Reportedly Perform At Kamala Harris’ Upcoming Rally In Texas

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NBC Sports

We’re now less than two weeks away from Election Day in the United States, on November 5, when we’ll be closer to knowing whether it’s Donald Trump or Kamala Harris who will be our next president. The candidates are in the home stretch, and it looks like Harris is pulling out all the stops. The ultimate stop, actually: Beyoncé.

NBC News reports that “according to three sources familiar with the plans,” Beyoncé will appear with Harris at an event in Houston tomorrow (October 25) night. Furthermore, according to “one of the sources, who has direct knowledge of the preparations,” Beyoncé is “expected to perform.”

Yesterday, Harris campaign spokesman Ian Sams confirmed Willie Nelson and Beyoncé’s mom Tina Knowles are also expected to be present at the rally.

This isn’t Beyoncé first brush with the Democratic party: In 2008, she sang at Barack Obama’s first inauguration, and in 2016, she performed at a Hillary Clinton presidential campaign rally in Ohio.

This also isn’t Harris first big-time rally appearance: Just a few days ago, Eminem showed up to endorse Harris at a rally in Detroit. Obama was also on hand, and in perhaps an even bigger surprise than Eminem showing up, the former president went ahead and gave a little rendition of “Lose Yourself.”

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Breanna Stewart Asked For Some Red Wine On Twitter During The Liberty Parade And A Fan Delivered

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FOX 5 NY

The New York Liberty got to celebrate their first WNBA championship on Thursday with a parade through the streets of New York City, and as is always the case at a championship parade, the beverages were flowing. However, Breanna Stewart realized she wasn’t fully prepared for the parade with everything she needed, so she put the call out on Twitter for a bottle of red wine, hoping a fan could pass her some vino as her float passes by.

About an hour after Stewie put out the call, a Liberty fan delivered to the delight of the former MVP, as she got handed a bottle in a brown paper bag from a fan on the street and gave him a big dap to thank him.

Stewie put that wine to good use as the parade continued, pouring up a glass — how she had a wine glass and not wine, who knows — lighting up a cigar, and snapping an extremely cold pic on her float.

There’s a strong chance Stewie just wanted the wine to create this pic for the “aged like fine wine” prompt, so salute to that fan who made a quick pit stop on the way to the parade to make that happen.

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What To Watch: Our Picks For The TV Shows And Movies We Think You Should Stream This Week

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Warner Bros. Pictures/Merle Cooper

Each week our staff of film and television experts surveys the entertainment landscape to select the ten best new/newish shows available for you to stream at home. We put a lot of thought into our selections, and our debates on what to include and what not to include can sometimes get a little heated and feelings may get hurt, but so be it, this is an important service for you, our readers. With that said, here are our selections for this week.

15. English Teacher (Hulu)

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You might know Brian Jordan Alvarez from his videos on TikTok and Instagram as TJ Mack, the singer of earworm “Sitting.” He’s also the star and creator of English Teacher, about a teacher who “often finds himself at the intersection of the personal, professional, and political aspects of working at a high school. Evan wants to be a principled person but often runs into trouble because of it.” His first lesson to his students: sitting is the opposite of standing.

Watch it on Hulu

14. The Penguin (Max)

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HBO

Colin Farrell’s scene-stealing performance in The Batman resulted in him being turned into a meme and, probably more impressively, getting a spin-off on Max. The Penguin explores Oswald Cobblepot’s (or as he’s called in the show, Oz Cobb’s) rise in the seedy Gotham underworld. The series, which also stars Cristin Milioti, Clancy Brown, and Theo Rossi, is getting comparisons to another crime drama in the HBO / Max family: The Sopranos. Not too shabby.

Watch it on Max

13. Dan Da Dan (Netflix)

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The acclaimed anime Dan Da Dan is about Momo, a high school girl from a family of spirit mediums, and her classmate / occult fanatic Okarun, who begin talking after she saves him from getting bullied. However, an argument ensues between them: Momo believes in ghosts but denies aliens, and Okarun believes in aliens but denies ghosts. It’s a real Mulder and Scully dynamic, if they were both Mulder (and there was a Turbo Granny). Dan Da Dan, which is getting a weekly release, comes from animation studio Science Saru, who also made last year’s shockingly good Scott Pilgrim Takes Off.

Watch it on Netflix

12. Nobody Wants This (Netflix)

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One of the most talked-about shows at the moment is Nobody Wants This. It turns out, everybody wants to see Kristen Bell and Adam Brody in a romantic comedy, which is something I could have told Netflix without having to be paid an executive’s exorbitant salary. Nobody Wants This follows the unlikely relationship between a sex podcaster (Bell) and a hot rabbit (Brody). It’s quite charming, and hopefully a sign that we’ll get more good rom-coms soon.

Watch it on Netflix

11. Teacup (Peacock)

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The official synopsis for Teacup reads, “Teacup follows a disparate group of people in rural Georgia who must come together in the face of a mysterious threat in order to survive.” But that leaves out the intriguing involvement of producer James Wan, or that the subject matter is so “horrifying,” it made star Yvonne Strahovski “feel sick.” Just in time for Halloween!

Watch it on Peacock

10. Disclaimer (Apple TV Plus)

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Alfonso Cuarón, the Oscar-winning director of Children Men, Y tu mamá también (big week for the YTMT freaks out there!), and the best Harry Potter movie, is back with his first new project in six years. Disclaimer stars Cate Blanchett as a journalist who receives a mysterious book in the mail that threatens to reveal her darkest secrets. The ensemble cast of the psychological thriller, which is told over seven chapters, also includes Kevin Kline, Kodi Smit-McPhee, HoYeon Jung, Louis Partridge, Lesley Manville, and Leila George. It’s just nice to have a new anything from Cuarón.

Watch it on Apple TV Plus

9. Hysteria! (Peacock)

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I’m sorry, but the only thing we should be talking about is how there’s a new show starring Bruce Campbell (yes) set during the Satanic Panic 1980s (yes yes) about a struggling metal band that pretends to be devil worshippers to become more popular (yes yes YES). Also, the group’s name is Dethkrunch (g*d yes). Hysteria was created by Matthew Scott Kane and is executive produced by Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley, the duo behind last year’s excellent Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves.

Watch it on Peacock

8. It’s Florida, Man (Max)

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What if Drunk History was exclusively about Florida? That’s essentially It’s Florida, Man, which takes funny folks like Anna Faris, Jake Johnson, Randall Park, Juliette Lewis, Sam Richardson, and Ego Nwodim, and has them recreate actual incidents from the Sunshine State. Don’t worry, it’s not exploitative: their real-life counterparts appear in the show, too. It’s all right there in the opening voiceover, courtesy of Stephen Root: “What you’re about to see may be dangerous, petty, misguided, but most definitely stupid. But it’s also all true. Sort of.”

Watch it on Max

7. Shrinking (Apple TV Plus)

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Bill Lawrence might be rebooting Scrubs, and working on more Ted Lasso, and he has big plans for Bad Monkey season 2, but for now, he — and fellow creators Jason Segel and Brett Goldstein — is focused on Shrinking. The mental health comedy returns for another season with Segel as grieving therapist Jimmy and Harrison Ford as his cranky co-worker Paul. But the show’s real MVP is Jessica Williams.

Watch it on Apple TV Plus

6. Woman of the Hour (Netflix)

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What’s Anna Kendrick been up to lately? Besides raking in “Cups” residuals, I assume, she also directed her first movie. Woman of the Hour looks back on the time that a real-life serial killer, Rodney Alcaca, appeared as a contestant on 1970s-era The Dating Game. Kendrick also stars as aspiring actress Cheryl Bradshaw, who was unlucky enough to pick Alcaca as her date. Woman of the Hour “explores the way women navigate a world of violent men,” and it’s terrifying because it’s so real.

Watch it on Netflix

5. Somebody Somewhere (Max)

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It’s the final season for one of TV’s sweetest shows. Somebody Somewhere follows Kansas resident Sam Miller (played by Bridget Everett), who goes on a journey of self-acceptance and finds “a community of outsiders who don’t fit in but don’t give up, showing that finding your people, and finding your voice, is possible,” according to the Max logline. “In season 3, we see growth against all odds.”

Watch it on Max

4. Don’t Move (Netflix)

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Sam Raimi hasn’t directed a horror movie since 2009’s delightfully nasty Drag Me to Hell, but he’s been a busy producer. The Evil Dead filmmaker is attached to a bunch of recent horror favorites, including Don’t Breathe and Crawl. His latest is Don’t Move, about a grieving woman (played by Kelsey Asbille) who is injected with a paralytic drug by a stranger on a hiking trail. She has 20 minutes to reach safety before her body shuts down, all while her pursuer is on her tail. Don’t Move is directed by Adam Schindler and Brian Netto.

Watch it on Netflix

3. What We Do in the Shadows (Hulu)

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Is What We Do in the Shadows still the funniest show on TV? Yes.

Watch it on hulu

2. Like a Dragon: Yakuza (Prime Video)

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The whole based-on-a-video-game thing worked out for Prime Video with Fallout. The streamer hopes to go two for two with Like a Dragon: Yakuza. The action-drama about the dark underworld of the yakuza takes place in two timelines: 1995, where Kiryu (played by Ryoma Takeuchi) and his friends Nishiki, Yumi, and Miho plan a heist at a yakuza-controlled arcade in Kamurocho, and 2005, after Kiryu is released from prison and returns to Kamurocho to protect his former friends. Or so he thinks.

Watch it on Prime Video

1. Trap (Max)

warner bros.

You know the movie about The Butcher? That freakin’ nutjob that goes around just chopping people up? Well, the feds or whatever heard that he’s gonna be here today, so they set up a trap for him. This whole concert? It’s a trap — and you can watch Trap on Max. It’s M. Night Shyamalan in Peak Dad Mode (with a fun, shirtless pie-eating performance from Josh Hartnett).

Watch it on Max

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Devin Booker And Kevin Durant Are Fans Of ‘The Wall’ At The Intuit Dome: ‘That Sh*t Might Work’

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The Los Angeles Clippers got to officially unveil their new home on Wednesday night when they played host to the Phoenix Suns in the first regular season game for the Intuit Dome in Inglewood. After sharing an arena with the Lakers for decades, the Clippers finally have an arena to call their own, where they don’t have to try and cover up Lakers banners and feel like a guest in their own arena anymore.

There are a number of things unique to the Intuit Dome that Steve Ballmer and the Clippers created to help it stand out, but the one that has garnered the most talk (and skepticism) is “The Wall” — a section behind the opposing basket that features 51 rows of uninterrupted seats at a steeper angle than the rest of the arena. They sell tickets for The Wall only to Clippers fans via a vetting process and seats are first come, first serve to encourage fans to get in early to get closer to the floor.

It’s the Clippers attempt at creating more of a college atmosphere, and while there were plenty of skeptics about how it’d work out — especially given the reputation of the Clippers as L.A.’s second team — in the opener it seemed pretty cool. The Suns missed a few free throws in the fourth quarter facing The Wall, with both Devin Booker and Kevin Durant missing. After the game, Phoenix’s two stars both talked about how they thought it was a cool and unique element the Clippers had, with Booker admitting “that sh*t might work” while KD said he couldn’t stop staring at it.

As Ballmer and the Clippers know, the only way to really get the most out of The Wall and the potential for a frenzied environment in their new building is to put a good team on the floor. They almost delivered a big win on Wednesday in overtime, but couldn’t quite close out Phoenix to start the season 0-1 — somewhat ironically due to a missed free throw of their own by James Harden. Still, part of the goal of the arena is to make players around the league take notice of them doing something different in L.A., and that seems to be working.

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Ben Quad Is The Next Big Thing In Emo (And Screamo)

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Kam Coker/Merle Cooper

The first thing I noticed was the name. “Is that… a Star Wars reference?” It is: the band Ben Quad named themselves after Episode I – The Phantom Menace podracing legend Ben Quadinaros, who had a rough time at the Boonta Eve Classic when his vehicle exploded at the starting line. But it turned out to be a fitting choice for a band name, as Ben Quad is also exploding… in popularity.

Ben Quad describe themselves as “Oklahoma post-emo and butt rock.” That’s one way of putting it. Another option is “No. 1 hot new band in town.” On their new EP, Ephemera, the group — vocalist Sam Wegrzynski, bassist Henry Shields, guitarist Edgar Viveros, and drummer Isaac Young — has gone in a heavier, more screamo-y direction. It’s their first release since signing to label Pure Noise Records, the home of fellow rippers Drug Church, Koyo, and Knocked Loose, and also their most cathartic. “We did that original screamo track as a flex,” Wegrzynski said in a band bio referring to 2022 single “You’re Part Of It” (over two million plays on Spotify), “and it then becoming our most popular song gave us the courage to go all out.”

I recently spoke to Sam and Edgar while Ben Quad were on tour with Prince Daddy & the Hyena (ahead of a Pure Noise showcase and headlining shows) about the EP, merch, emo-adjacent genres, video games, and, yes, Star Wars.

What made you decide to go in a more aggressive direction for Ephemera?

Edgar: A lot of people have been asking us that. And a lot of people have been saying like, “Hey, did the label influence you?” Literally, like two years ago, we put out a single called “You’re Part Of It” that was kind of in the same style. I was basically flexing and saying, like, hey, we can do this, too. And we like that style of music, so we just put it out. It ended up being our biggest song yet, and still is. And so I made a joke tweet that was like, hey, if this song gets 10,000 streams by the end of the week, we’ll make a whole EP out of it. And, you know, it got the 10,000 streams. People were super stoked, and then two years later, we finally put that guy out.

Now the song has something like two million streams.

Sam: Yeah, exactly. It was originally just us having fun putting out a different sound, just because we could. It’s like Edgar said, it’s music that we all enjoy in our own time. So we said, ah, screw it. Let’s make something, you know, kind of screamy, kind of fun. We had no idea that it would be our biggest one, and that this would be such an anticipated thing for our fans.

I don’t know who runs the Twitter account… Actually, who does run the Twitter account?

Edgar: It’s mostly me.

There was a recent tweet where you referred to the title track on the EP as the “proudest we’ve ever been of a song.” Besides it kicking ass, what made it a favorite?

Edgar: You know, it’s a favorite for me because I think we really pulled it out of a well that is super close to my heart. It, weirdly enough, is the song that came together the quickest. It’s the most confident we’ve ever been in our songwriting. We wrote that while we were recording in two days. And so one night I just was like, we need a fifth song. So I just cranked out the whole song structure. The next day, we did basically all the vocals in one day. I gave Isaac the song structure, and he just knocked out the drums in a single night. So it’s my favorite song, because it’s one of those things where it’s like, okay, we’re competent songwriters now, and it feels great being able to just go in a room and write something that I think is great. And, you know, everyone seems to like it.

Sam: I’m also really happy with it. I think initially that song was going to have vocal parts during the first minute of it. But I remember when Edgar wrote the guitar part in the studio, I was like, “Dude, I don’t want to sing over that. I just want to listen to that. I think singing over that is going to take away from how freaking sick these riffs are.” So, it was the first time we’ve ever done that, where we literally said, you know, we have songs with intros, but this was a whole minute of a song with absolutely no vocals. And it was a bit of a gamble, but I think it paid off. I think it speaks for itself. People are loving it.

Why did you decide on signing with Pure Noise Records?

Sam: It was really cool. We were fortunate enough to have a few different labels reaching out to us at the time and trying to, you know, get a deal going. We felt like the prettiest girl at the ball. You know, everybody was trying their best to bend the rules of the industry for us, because we’re a little more adamant. We’re not big enough to be in a position where we can ask for anything we want in contracts. But we were asking for as much as we could as far as the artist side, owning masters and all that kind of stuff. Pure Noise to us, they were so willing to do anything. I think it was nice to see that they genuinely believed in us, as opposed to believing in the image that Ben Quad could be. There were some other labels that immediately started talking about marketing and all that, which is cool, but in my head, I was like, “Oh, well, you guys just want the image right now. And you’re already thinking about how, you know, to sell the image.” We don’t even really know what our image is, you know what I mean? We’re still trying to figure out what our sound is. Pure Noise genuinely seemed like they were just down for the ride. They support us. They believe in anything that we want to do. It was crazy, you know, they hit us up before we announced the EP or anything. Obviously, no one knew that we were doing the screamo thing next, and that was the first thing we told them. They were so down. They were more than happy to help with that kind of thing. I think they were actually excited about it. I think they were kind of stoked that we were going that way. They seem like people who really do care about the band, and not just about how much the band can make them.

You mentioned figuring out your sound. Does being tagged with a genre label — typically with Ben Quad, it’s emo — ever feel constricting?

Edgar: You know what? I think, in a way, it does, but we don’t care. We’re just putting out music that we like, and regardless if people consider it screamo, emo, post-hardcore, whatever label you put on it, we’re just gonna put out what we like and whatever label people apply to us, you know, if it’s cool and trending, fuck it.

Sam: Our new stuff is getting put on the metal playlist on Spotify, and it’s like, alright!

What’s your favorite piece of Ben Quad merch that you’ve either sold yourselves or seen a fan wear?

Edgar: I think my favorite one right now is, we have this pink hoodie with “Rawr XD.” We were like, what if we lean into this scenecore thing, because we’re not a scenecore band into it. So it’s like this neon pink hoodie with a really textured monster on it that I just drew on a limb with marker, and I had someone make it into a design. And yeah, it looks cool. It looks like it comes straight out of Hot Topic. With that kind of stuff, I’m not afraid to lean on different things. Like, you know, let’s make the scenecore merch. Let’s make the emotional hardcore-style shirts. It’s all fun stuff.

Sam: I really like that one. But we did one in, like, 2019 through a scam company. We did not know it was a scam at the time, but it was. This company was reaching out to all these bands in Tulsa, Oklahoma, about doing a limited edition, one day drop of a merch item. We’d make the design and it would just be up for 24 hours. They’d do all the shipping, selling, all that stuff, using our likeness or whatever, use whatever design we gave them. Now, the shirt that came out was incredible… I don’t even know how to describe it. It’s a photo of a bunch of puppies, but they’re outlined in neon and pink and blue. A very loud shirt. And then our name is written in the most abhorrent, scribbly writing underneath it. The funny part is, we never got any money for that. The shirts did ship, but the company then completely disappeared after the shirt shipped, and nothing ever happened from that. That’s a fun one, because if I see someone wearing that, I’m like, “Oh shit, you must have lived in Oklahoma.”

Have you ever done merch with Ben Quadinaros on it?

Sam: I think we have one shirt with Quadinaros on it.

Edgar: We have a really old one that says “Ben Quadinaros” on a shirt. I think it’s like a pizza design on it. I think I have one sitting in my closet. Maybe once a year, I’ll run into someone that still has that.

“Blood For The Blood God” appears in a Rock Band DLC. If another one of your songs could be in a video game, what video game would you pick?

Edgar: It’s so easy.

Both: Fortnite.

Sam: Fortnite radio, let’s go.

You just want to see Peter Griffin flossing to one of your songs.

Edgar: I’ve been playing Fortnite every night of this tour.

I know the year isn’t over yet, but looking ahead to 2025, what are some of the things you hope to achieve?

Edgar: The goal is LP2. I think that’s the biggest goal, making a follow-up to all this. And who knows, it might be a combination of sounds. It might be its own thing. Like we said, we do our own thing, but that is going to be the biggest goal. Next goal, I think this is a continual goal, is to tour forever. Tour forever, write good music. That’s basically all we want to do.

Sam: I also want to try to dip our toes in festivals next year. We were really busy with the EP and setting up the label and, you know, finding our footing in this whole thing. And I think next year, I would love to do a festival run in the summer.

What can you say about LP2?

Edgar: I think there’s some bones here and there, but I think once we get back from tour, that’s where the real cooking is going to start.

Sam: And I’m so proud of us because we do so much writing in the studio. I think it’s easy to get distracted when you’re writing at home or when you’re trying to do anything. There’s so many things that can catch your eye and ear, and being with the boys, being with the whole band and writing together, is important.

Ephemera is out 10/25 via Pure Noise. You can find more information here.