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At the end of 2022, Foo Fighters shared a message in which they noted that after the death of Taylor Hawkins, the group was “going to be a very different band going forward.” This led to a bunch of speculation about who the group’s new drummer should be, and now we know that touring with the band will be Josh Freese. He’s not exactly a household name, but who is he?

Well, it’s worth noting that after the aforementioned 2022 message, when Foo fans started discussing who should be the band’s next drummer, Freese’s name was among the most mentioned. One commenter at the time called him “the ultimate rock session drummer,” and indeed, he’s performed with artists like Devo, The Vandals, Guns N’ Roses, A Perfect Circle, Puddle Of Mudd, Nine Inch Nails, Weezer, Sublime With Rome, Paramore, and Sting, among many others. On top of that, he also played with Foo Fighters during their Hawkins tribute concerts in 2022.

Freese was officially revealed as the new Foo Fighters touring drummer during the band’s Foo Fighters: Preparing Music For Concerts livestream, but there were indications that Freese was the pick before that. As Variety noted, Freese recently pulled out of performance obligations with The Offspring and Danny Elfman.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

The Succession Report Card is a weekly recap feature where we attempt to assign grades to the important people, things, and themes from each episode of Succession. The grades are entirely subjective and the criteria for scoring will change from week to week and occasionally mid-week. Someone might get detention. It’ll probably be Roman.

SEASON 4, EPISODE 9 – “Church and State”

Roman

Roman was riding high. He was doing great, or at least great within the context of Being Roman, by which I mean he was feeling great about leaning his whole torso onto the scales of democracy to get a potential fascist elected president, and about being the co-CEO, and about the eulogy he was going to give at Logan’s funeral. He had pre-grieved, he claimed, and was cracking wildly inappropriate jokes about Shiv and her fetus on the way to the funeral, right in front of and to her. Roman was on a cloud.

Buuuuuuuuuuuuut…

Things rarely stay good for any character on this show, especially the Roy children, who put on masterful displays of insecurity every week, usually in their own little specific broken ways. I’ve been tinkering with a theory that no more than two of them can be happy at any given time, and it sure looked like I was onto something as Roman’s freefall and Kendall’s ascendancy crisscrossed like a big X on a line graph up there at the front of the church. Let’s tick off some of Roman’s lowlights here:

• Melted down in front of the world as he prepared to give his “my dad was a great man” eulogy moments after Ewan hopped up there and reminded everyone what a prick Logan was
• Discovered that he gave away the farm with his Mencken plan, and that the leverage he thought he had was actually a time bomb that he himself had armed
• Stormed out of the reception and into an angry mob that he started cussing at until he got punched in the face and trampled a little, which is, I think, maybe, what he wanted to happen all along, due to the thing I mentioned earlier about the people on this show finding creative new ways to prove how empty they are inside

I’m a little mad at myself that I was surprised by any of this. Like, of course Roman would melt down into a puddle when things got a teeny bit real or hard. He’s a little boy with no spine and he has been pretty much every second we’ve known him. This was always where it was headed for Roman. I should have known that.

GRADE: F

MUST IMPROVE: We could go a lot of places here but let’s stick with “running into an angry mob that hates your family and taunting them with cusses”

Cousin Greg

It says a lot about how far this goof has fallen in my eyes that when I saw him furiously peddling that bicycle through Manhattan traffic to the funeral, I — a person who has written quite literally thousands of words about my affinity for him, and who referred to him as “my sweet boy” as recently as the beginning of this season — found myself thinking “Man, how funny would it be if he gets hit by an SUV right now?”

Whatever. I stand by it. Everything started going to hell once he got that haircut a while ago. It’s a Samson situation we have here, but one with charm instead of physical strength. And come on, don’t act like it wouldn’t have been funny to see all those arms and legs flail about as he launched over the hood of a Cadillac Escalade. I swear I am not a violent person. But still. I’m laughing a little right now just thinking about it.

GRADE: F

MUST IMPROVE: Hair floppiness

Mencken

Mencken has three things going against him right now. The first is the thing where he’s kind of a Nazi, which we should not overlook here or with any Nazi-adjacent person. The second is that the position he’s in right now means a lot of dopes and idiots are going to harangue him for favors and influence at places like — to choose a relevant example — funerals, even when he just wants to be left alone, which sounds like a living hell to me. And the third is the thing where he might actually have to be the President, which also sounds pretty terrible to me.

It remains my position that anyone who actually wants to be the president should be automatically disqualified from holding the position. That kind of ambition is weird and suspect to me. That goes double — triple, even — for people who might be Nazis.

GRADE: F

MUST IMPROVE: It’s generally not a great thing when a two-paragraph description of you includes the word “Nazi” multiple times

Snot

The problem with snot is that it’s the only bodily fluid that comes out of your face that isn’t sympathetic at all. Like, tears usually get people to say “Aww, it’s okay, man.” Blood gets people concerned for your well-being. Vomit means you’re physically ill and in hell about it a little bit. Even drool makes people feel bad for you sometimes because it means you’ve lost control of things a little bit.

But a dribble of snot comes out of your nose, for almost any reason, and people look at it and you and their immediate reaction is “gross.” It’s not fair. We all have snot. But life isn’t always fair. Snot will take anyone down a peg. It’s the great equalizer like that.

GRADE: F

MUST IMPROVE: Staying inside faces

Mausoleums

It’s incredibly weird to me that we — humans, just in general — take our dead and dress them in their best clothes and put them in beautifully crafted wooden boxes and then bury them in a big grass field with a bunch of other dead people. It’s even weirder when people spend massive sums of money on huge marble tombs to house their body boxes. Think about it all for a little bit this week. Think about how we got here, to a place where this is a normal thing people do. Or… don’t. I’ve apparently thought about it enough for both of us.

GRADE: F

MUST IMPROVE: There is very little stopping you from writing something like “put my ashes in a hot dog cannon and blast them into a lake” in your will

Tom

He’s tired, okay? He’s just very tired. He’s been up running a news network and getting bullied into calling an election for a fascist and he’s not getting any credit for it and he’s just so very tired. He just needs a little nap. Not at the hotel. They know him there. It’s sad. A little nap at home. And some credit for helping the Nazi become president. It would be nice if his pregnant estranged wife would stop drinking champagne a lot, too. But that’s a problem for tomorrow. After he gets a little sleep.

He’s really very tired.

GRADE: D

MUST IMPROVE: He is the boss now and no one could stop him from putting a little cot in his office

Connor

The thing here is that Connor wanted to give a speech at Logan’s funeral that broke the form of the traditional eulogy and — maybe, if the other siblings are to be believed — could have left them open to legal liability and I NEED TO KNOW WHAT HE WAS GOING TO SAY AND HOW HE WAS GOING TO SAY IT.

COME ON.

YOU CAN’T JUST INTRODUCE THAT AND NOT DELIVER IT.

I MEAN, YOU CAN, AND IT IS PROBABLY BETTER FROM A STORYTELLING STANDPOINT BUT…

LIKE…

COME ON.

GRADE: D

MUST IMPROVE: SHOW ME

Matsson

Matsson:

• Looks like he’s getting his deal through now, thanks to the “American CEO” gambit that Shiv cooked up
• Shaved and put on a suit, which I did not love for him, if only because, like… what’s the point of being a billionaire if you still have to shave and wear a suit, you know?
• Got to tell the maybe next President that his personal political platform is “pussy, privacy, pasta,” which had to be a little exciting for him

Mixed bag for Matsson.

GRADE: C-

MUST IMPROVE: Show up to the next funeral in a hoodie

Gerri

Gerri spent most of this episode making concerned faces directed in the general direction of Roman, a man(-ish) she has a complicated relationship with, who also fired her, and who left himself open to a lawsuit worth many millions of dollars based on the many pictures of his penis he sent her.

I would have enjoyed hearing Gerri’s inner monologue this week. Maybe they can offer it as a bonus at some point, like a director’s commentary. Something to consider.

GRADE: C

MUST IMPROVE: I am going to be very disappointed if Gerri does not follow through with her lawsuit because she feels bad for Roman

Various Karls, Franks, and Karolinas

Quick check-in:

• Hugo spent the whole episode feeding Kendall information during a funeral and has now been upgraded from stooge to dog (woof woof)
• Frank blew off the pitch to join Roman’s posse and then described Logan as “a salty dog” and “a good egg,” which is at least half right
• Karl is probably still watching the footage of Roman blubbering in the church, and he’s probably forwarding it to at least a dozen people

About halfway through this episode, the thought “what if Karl and Frank gave one of the eulogies together?” zipped into my head. I enjoyed that image a lot. Still do, really.

GRADE: C+

MUST IMPROVE: Getting out for good

Kendall

I’ll be honest: I did not expect there to be any situation where Kendall ended up with a B after the way he started the episode. He spent the first 15-20 minutes just yelling strange phrases at the women in his life right out on the sidewalk. There was a “YOU’RE TOO ONLINE” at Rava when she was escaping with the kids, and there was a “YOU’RE DUMB” at Jess when she told him she was quitting. It was going real, real bad for Kendall.

But then…

Against staggering odds…

He kind of nailed the emergency impromptu eulogy and he maneuvered his way through a power vacuum to be in a position to run the company himself and, I mean, he behaved like a reasonably competent — awful, but competent — individual, which is a big step for him. I don’t know. I’m still kind of shocked by it all. He’ll probably fumble it all in pathetic fashion soon enough (it’s what he does), but still. Decent showing.

GRADE: B

MUST IMPROVE: I must again stress that you should never yell “YOU’RE TOO ONLINE” at anyone, ever, especially in public, and especially if you want to win that argument

Shiv

Shiv:

• Might have positioned herself as the American CEO of the GoJo-led Waystar, if the deal does in fact squeak through under a Mencken presidency
• Just kind of blurted out a pregnancy announcement to her brothers in the car on the way to their dad’s funeral, which is probably not how she pictured it all going down when she was a young girl with plans of starting a family
• I mean, again… still drinking a lot of champagne for a pregnant lady

Lot going on here. I think I’m giving her a B just because the bar was set so low in the last few episodes. We grade on a curve here.

GRADE: B

MUST IMPROVE: I haven’t heard her toss out any baby names yet and I’m suddenly very curious to hear what she’s thinking there

Rava

All I ever want for any secondary character on this show is to get as far away from the Roy family as any single episode’s runtime will allow, so I am very happy for Rava and her panicked journey upstate with the children.

GRADE: B+

MUST IMPROVE: Drive faster!

Logan’s exes, collectively

I hope they all bond over this and end up going on a yearly trip to wine country together. I would like to see how Marcia reacts to a wine that disappoints her. And I bet Kerry is fun after a few glasses of white. And I bet Caroline can drink both of them under the table. This paragraph started as a joke but now I’m mad I won’t actually get to see it happen. It’s a problem I have sometimes.

GRADE: B+

MUST IMPROVE: Choices of men

Jess Jordan

YES

JESS

GET OUT

LEAVE

RUN

GO

YES

GRADE: A

MUST IMPROVE: I want to say “doing this weeks and possibly months or years ago” but I don’t want to lose sight of the fact that it’s still good it’s happening at all

Ebba

I love Ebba. Just ruining her boss and leaking any and all information she stumbles across or is openly told, for the very justifiable reason of “he’s a creep who sexually harassed her by sending pints or frozen blood as a joke and/or romantic gesture.” I hope she and Jess Jordan start a podcast titled “Our Manchild Bosses” and violate their NDAs every week by telling stories about stuff Matsson and Kendall did. Make it a whole spinoff. Have Jeremy Strong show up two or three times each season and yell about the lawyers he’s going to hire to try to stop them. It would be riveting television.

GRADE: A

MUST IMPROVE: Ebba should go to Cancun and cut loose a little bit

Ewan Roy

There are power moves and then there’s “storming the lectern during your brother’s funeral to give a eulogy no one asked for about what a jerk he was almost all the time and how the world is probably better off with him dead.”

Fun family, the Roys.

GRADE: A

MUST IMPROVE: I mean, if you’re gonna go for it, might as well spit on the casket on your way back to the pew, right?

Caleb Martin contributed 18 points off the bench for the Miami Heat in their dominant 128-102 win over the Boston Celtics in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Finals on Sunday night, May 21. In the Heat’s 111-105 Game 2 victory, Martin torched the Celtics for 25 points, and he bucketed another 15 in the series’ opening matchup (another Heat win).

The eighth-seeded Heat are one win away from perhaps the most improbable NBA Finals appearance in history — certainly in recent memory — and we learned during TNT’s Game 2 broadcast that Martin was just one J. Cole call away from Miami last summer.

“We found out some interesting facts about Caleb Martin and how he got to this point,” TNT sideline reporter Allie LaForce said during the second quarter, as captured by Bleacher Report. “We were talking to [Heat head coach] Erik Spoelstra before the game, and he said a week before camp started, J. Cole — yes, J. Cole, the rapper — called assistant coach Caron Butler and said, ‘My guy Caleb Martin is available.’”

LaForce continued, “Coach Butler passed on the information to Erik Spoelstra. He said, ‘Could he come? We’re scrimmaging tomorrow.’ [Martin] showed up, impressed everyone, became a two-way player, and ever since, was a huge part of the starting rotation until they had to decide to sign him full-time. It was a match made in heaven from day one.”

Martin went undrafted in the 2019 NBA draft, signing that summer as an undrafted free agent with the Charlotte Hornets. The Nevada product inked a multi-year pact with the team by that October (as relayed by the NBA at the time), but Martin was waived in August 2021.

Miami signed Martin to a two-way contract in September 2021 (as first reported by The Athletic’s Shams Charania), which blossomed into a three-year extension worth up to $20.4 million come last July.

Undrafted players Martin, Duncan Robinson, Gabriel Vincent, and Max Strus have contributed impressively to this magical Heat playoff run led by six-time All-Star Jimmy Butler.

J. Cole could also be worth a look this coming offseason. The Dreamville rapper (and nasty hooper in his own right) has experience playing professionally in the Basketball Africa League and the Canadian Elite Basketball League.

Game 4 of the Eastern Conference Finals is slated to tip off at 8:30 p.m. ET on Tuesday, May 23, from Miami’s Kaseya Center. The potential elimination game will be broadcast on TNT.

Last month, Mike Lindell was ordered to pay $5 million to a computer forensics expert who successfully proved that the MyPillow’s CEO election data did not prove 2020 voter fraud. Lindell had offered the prize money as part of a contest that spectacularly blew up in his face. However, despite losing the arbitration ruling, Lindell is still trying to get out of paying the $5 million reward.

Lawyers for Robert Zeidman, the cyber expert who won Lindell’s contest, have requested that a judge compel Lindell to pay the prize money immediately, which should be easy considering how often he boasts about MyPillow’s success.

Via CNN:

“It’s kind of put up or shut up time for Mr. Lindell,” said Zeidman’s attorney, Brian Glasser, co-founder of Bailey & Glasser LLP. “If Lindell is not a complete fraudster, he should have the ability to pay.”

Lindell had already asked a state court to vacate the arbitration panel’s decision, according to the new filing from Zeidman’s team. Lindell has not yet made any payments to Zeidman.

In true Lindell fashion, he’s calling the ruling a “sham” and vowing to prove that he knows the real truth, which is exactly how Lindell ended up in this situation in the first place. Why start learning lessons now?

“This is a complete sham. A complete sham,” Lindell told CNN. “The bottom line is this thing is wrong, and I’m not stopping until we prove him wrong.”

(Via CNN)

60 Minutes received intense backlash earlier this year after handing Marjorie Taylor Greene a platform for her anti-trans agenda, which is one of her most frequently articulated stances of late. That is, other than her quest to seemingly impeach every Democrat and abolish porn websites. Her anti-trans sentiment is an old favorite, though, and Greene frequently rages against what she calls the “Trans agenda destroying women.”

Notably, however, Greene’s far-right producer boyfriend, Brian Glenn, is the subject of a video that’s been circulating on Twitter. The Patriot Takes Twitter account shared an old clip from his WFAA newscaster days in Dallas. In the clip, Glenn jokes about how the pantyhose “does feel kind of good actually.”

What was Greene’s response? That Glenn was “reporting on an upcoming local theatre production and the morons over at Patriot Takes think this is an attack…. The left is so stupid.”

She seems fine with drag as a “joke,” apparently, but Greene sure won’t tolerate the attire when her boyfriend isn’t involved. The Patriot Takes Twitter account has posted various clips about her blaming “drag queen story time” for corrupting the children (and much worse).

Yet it’s fine with Greene that her boyfriend did the drag routine back in the day for fun on local news. Naturally, the tweets flowed in to call out her hypocrisy.

Janelle Monáe has been one of the most talked-about pop culture figures in recent weeks, due largely to the skin-bearing rollout of her upcoming album, The Age Of Pleasure, and how it contrasts her previous style era, which featured her mostly covered up in suits. Now, Monáe has talked about what’s going on here.

In a new Rolling Stone feature, Monáe offered some succinct reasoning behind her skimpier outfits as of late, saying, “I’m much happier when my titties are out and I can run around free.”

The piece explores the regular parties Monáe hosts and opens with an anecdote about them showing their butt to their friends at one of them. Monáe said of how these events inspired “Lipstick Lover,” “I have a whole spreadsheet with 50 to almost 100 experiences that I had at this party. I’ve been a Lipstick Lover. I wear red lipsticks at the parties. I’ve had moments where if me and a girl or an energy want to engage, you’re going to see lipstick. […] I remember how it felt when I got kissed on my neck with red lipstick. I remember how I went to bed feeling. It was a deep rouge. It wasn’t matte. I remember the way the person looked. And I was like, ‘That’s a f*cking song.’”

Monáe also revealed that even when they were publicly more buttoned up, their lifestyle off-camera wasn’t necessarily that way: “Even when I was really, really wearing only suits, I was either in a suit or you would find me at my own parties naked. It was no in-between.”

Read the full feature here.

Janelle Monáe is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

It’s a common experience. You finally get around to watching the television show that everyone has been talking about, except it’s a show that everyone was talking about 5, 10, 20 years ago, and now, in 2023, you get weird looks when you bring up, like, the Man in Black from Lost. Aubrey Plaza recently had that happen to her with The Sopranos.

“I’m shook,” she told Vanity Fair about the series finale of The Sopranos, which she’s been watching with her buddy, New Girl‘s Jake Johnson. “Yesterday I was like, ’Oh my God, what do you think happened?’ And he was like, ‘I don’t know but I was crying,’ and I was like, ‘I was crying too.’ I was like, ‘This is ridiculous, that we’re going through Sopranos finale stuff.’” Why did Plaza decide to start The Sopranos now? It’s one of the best shows ever, that’s why.

Also, she worked with Sopranos star Michael Imperioli on The White Lotus.

Plaza finally feasted on the series that birthed prestige television while making the second season of another obsession-inducing show, The White Lotus. She was starring alongside Michael Imperioli, who played the tragic Christopher Moltisanti on The Sopranos, and figured if she had plot questions, she could just ask him.

If you haven’t gotten around to watching Deadwood yet, don’t wait like Plaza and The Sopranos. As long as Ian McShane works with you.

(Via Vanity Fair)

Foo Fighters are in a transitional period, so a lot of new things are happening for Dave Grohl and company. They have a new album, But Here We Are, on the way (their first since the death of Taylor Hawkins). They delivered the Foo Fighters: Preparing Music For Concerts livestream event this past weekend, where they introduced Josh Freese as their new touring drummer. Also during that performance, they debuted a new song, “Nothing At All.”

The song has a bit of a slinky groove to it in the verses before ramping up the rock intensity for an in-your-face chorus. Grohl starts the song, “I’ve been meaning to tell you / I’ve been out of my head / Put my arm on your doorstep / Get you out of my bed / Maybe I’m delusional / Is that so unusual?”

Press materials previously said of the upcoming album, “But Here We Are is in nearly equal measure the 11th Foo Fighters album and the first chapter of the band’s new life. Sonically channelling the naiveté of Foo Fighters’ 1995 debut, informed by decades of maturity and depth, But Here We Are is the sound of brothers finding refuge in the music that brought them together in the first place 28 years ago, a process that was as therapeutic as it was about a continuation of life.”

Watch Foo Fighters perform “Nothing At All” above.

But Here We Are is out 6/2 via Roswell Records/RCA Records. Find more information here.

The penultimate Succession episode included some surprisingly reaffirming moments involving seating arrangements, and it also revealed Roman Roy to be, well, human. “Roman the Showman,” as he referred to himself, ended up emotionally collapsing while eulogizing his father, Logan. It’s a monumental death that we as an audience have had time to grieve, but the funeral only occurred mere days after the character’s actual demise in Succession time.

For his part, Roman believed that his “pre-grieving” was sufficient until he found himself in live-audience mode. And so, we went from an episode where Roman went from joking about having sex with Shiv (“it it mine?”) to having a breakdown in front of the world. It was the rarest of emotional displays with Kendall and Shiv meeting him at the pulpit while Roman heartbrokenly sobbed, “Is he in there? Well, can we get him out?” This was a gut punch, alright, and Kieran Culkin completely sold the scene.

As it turns out, Kieran “didn’t rehearse” that scene, and he does believe that his character’s “razzle dazzle” plan fell apart partially because of what he’d heard his Uncle Ewan declare only moments beforehand. Here’s what Kieran told writer Julie Miller of Vanity Fair when she posed that question:

I imagine part of the breakdown is a reaction to hearing his Uncle Ewan’s [James Cromwell] eulogy, where he learns some pretty traumatic truths about Logan’s childhood.

I remember thinking it could be connected to that, and specifically not wanting to read Ewan’s speech in the script. I didn’t want to know what he was going to say. Roman had a plan to go up and razzle dazzle [the mourners]. And Ewan interrupts–and [the unraveling] starts from the frustration of something not being part of the plan, and then continues with him being pretty devastated by the stuff [Ewan] was saying. It was a good jumping-off point because now it’s like, “Oh, I’ve got to follow that.” I just felt very lost. We didn’t rehearse it and I really did not want to rehearse it–even on the couch the night before. I just kind of looked at the lines vaguely and went, “I don’t want to look at this. I don’t want to plan or think about how this is gonna happen.” Which was also terrifying, because I don’t know that I can do that stuff.

Kieran is also pretty sure that “the first take” of the breakdown is what materialized for the episode in the end. And rehearsal or not, it’s no wonder that fans are calling for him to receive an Emmy right now.

HBO’s ‘Succession’ airs on Sunday nights at 9:00pm EST.

(Via Vanity Fair)

About ten months ago, Maggie Rogers released Surrender, her highly anticipated second album. Surrender is still a relatively fresh release, but Rogers apparently had more to say, because she’s already finished recording her third album.

Rogers shared a gallery on Instagram yesterday (May 21) and wrote, “that’s a wrap on LP3 !!!! [star emoji] [butterfly emoji] written + recorded + off to mixing. so so so in love with these songs and cannot wait to start playing them for you this summer.”

The photos show she was recording at the famed Electric Lady Studios in New York, with Ian Fitchuk and Konrad Snyder. There’s no word yet on when the album is set to come out, but it seems to be just about ready.

Speaking of Rogers getting on stage this summer, she announced her Summer Of ’23 Tour last month. She’s been hearing about all the drama with Ticketmaster fees and issues, so she took a different approach with selling tickets. She explained, “in an effort to eliminate bots and lower fees — i’m going analog. come buy a ticket like it’s 1965. i’ll be in person selling tix at music hall of williamsburg tomorrow for the forest hills show. see you there !” Other venues also offered in-person ticket sales.