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Ryan Murphy seems to have moved on from making content about high school a high school show choir and has remained focused on what he does best: scaring viewers to their core with real-life crime stories. Murphy’s new project The Watcher will premiere on October 13th, just days after Monster: The Jeffrey Dhamer Story became one of the most streamed Netflix shows on the platform.

Following Murphy’s deep dive into the true crime genre, The Watcher will follow the very real and very horrifying true story of the Broaddus family who move into their dream home and begin receiving chilling letters from a stalker who only goes by The Watcher. Naomi Watts and Bobby Cannavale lead the cast, alongside Emmy-winner Jennifer Coolidge, Mia Farrow, Noma Dumezweni, Joe Mantello, Richard Kind, and Margo Martindale.

In 2014, the couple purchased a New Jersey home for nearly $1.4 million before being served taunting letters and phone calls from a stalker who would request the children’s blood. The stalker in question claimed they looked over the house for decades. The story was chronicled in a 2018 piece in The Cut, which described the family’s horrifying ordeal.

Spoiler alert: The Watcher was never found, though there are many theories online, so it will be interesting to see which one Murphy ran with. Maybe Murphy knows something that we don’t! The house was sold again years later and, so far, there have not been any more stalking incidents there, as far as we know.

On a lighter note, here is a brilliant tour of the house with Coolidge’s character, a real estate agent. Act now! This house will not last!

The Watcher drops on October 13th on Netflix.

(Via People and The Cut)

Cardi B just celebrated her 30th birthday earlier this week (on Tuesday, October 11) and got one hell of a present to commemorate the occasion, adding another historical milestone to a career that is already chock-full of them. Her 2018 singles “I Like It” and “Bodak Yellow” were recently both certified 11x Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), making her the first female rapper ever to have two singles sell 11,000,000 each. While a lot of this can be attributed to the advent of streaming, it’s still an impressive accomplishment, considering hip-hop’s well-established gender imbalance.

Cardi, who recently landed another hit on the Hot 100 alongside GloRilla with “Tomorrow 2,” celebrated her birthday Tuesday night with a burlesque-themed party in Los Angeles attended by Chloe X Halle, Jamie Foxx, Tiffany Haddish, and more. Well-wishers included her “Shake It” collaborator Dougie B and fellow rapper Latto.

Cardi was due for some good news after her last couple of weeks. While she should have been celebrating the success of “Tomorrow 2,” she was instead duking it out in wars of words with City Girls’ JT and rising rapper Akbar V. She also recently accepted a plea deal in her 2018 strip club assault case, which she said prompted her to forego a multi-million-dollar deal with Activision for a Call Of Duty endorsement campaign. Here’s hoping her next year will be better than the last.

Cardi B is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

The Stranger Things writers are hard at work on the fifth and final season of the Netflix series (they’ve got the blurry photo to prove it), but they recently took time on Twitter to share the “crazy sh*t” that nearly happened in previous seasons.

“Crazy sh*t that almost happened #1: In season 2, a possessed Will was going to kill Bob,” reads one tweet. The other revelation would’ve had a bigger impact on the overall story: “Crazy sh*t that almost happened #2: In season 2, Eleven was going to mercy kill her mother.” Eleven’s mother, Terry, is still alive in a catatonic state and possesses a number of powers, including telepathy. As for Bob, well, he was too good for this world.

More TV show writers should reveal the “crazy sh*t” that almost happened. Did Don and Peggy from Mad Men go on a road trip to visit the world’s largest peanut? Did Tony Soprano get into Big Buck Hunter? Did Moe’s bar rag on The Simpsons come to life with the voice of Jeremy Irons? We’ll never know (except for the Simpsons one — that actually happened). The Stranger Things writers have opened a world of possibilities.

Stranger Things will return for its final season… eventually.

(Via Yahoo! Entertainment)

Between Kanye West’s interview with Tucker Carlson and L.A. City Council President Nury Martinez’s leaked audio about wanting to give her white colleague’s Black son “a beatdown,” it’s been a big week for racism. And Trevor Noah wanted to talk about all of it — especially Alabama senator Tommy Tuberville’s impressive feat of cramming more racism into 15 seconds of a speech than perhaps any other person before or after him.

On Tuesday night, Noah mockingly feigned surprise that a Republican senator from Alabama, of all places, would dare to say the quiet part out loud — and on TV no less. During a rally over the weekend, a fired-up Tuberville told the crowd that had gathered that Democrats had the power to put an end to crime in America, but that “they want crime. They want crime because they want to take over what you’ve got. They want to control what you have. They want reparations because they think the people that do the crime are owed that. They are not owed that. BULLSHIT!”

Noah was surprised, and maybe even a little impressed, by Tuberville daring to throw in that whiplash-inducing mention of reparations:

I’ve heard racists say all kinds of things. I’ve heard them say that Black people are criminals, and I’ve heard them say that reparations are reverse racism. But it takes a true racism innovator to combine both ideas at the same time. This is like the stuffed crust pizza of racism. ‘Cause I knew you could have crust, and I knew that you could have cheese. But I didn’t know that you could put the cheese inside the crust that’s holding the rest of the cheese. Because now the crust is holding the cheese at the same time… It’s genius!!

Noah knew that many of his viewers would be confused by Tuberville’s argument. And to those people, he offered this: “Congratulations. You’re sane.” But Noah did have some questions about just how sound Tuberville’s argument really was:

How does this argument explain Black people who steal things from other Black people? ‘Cause then who’s reparating who? And secondly, how is this man going to stand on stage and imply that all criminals are Black? That is disgusting! Has this senator never watched Netflix? I’m not going to stand here and let Tommy Tuberville erase all these white people’s contributions.

Noah dubbed that double standard “the real racism.”

You can watch the full clip above, beginning at the 1:45 mark.

Since Taylor Swift’s last tour, she has released five new records: Lover, Folklore, Evermore, Fearless (Taylor’s Version), and Red (Taylor’s Version). That number will soon be six, as Swift’s tenth studio album, Midnights, is dropping next Friday. And with it, many fans had suspected that a new touring announcement was imminent.

While Swift had planned to head out on the road for various scheduled Lover Fest shows in North America, South America, and Europe, the pandemic prompted cancellations that were never rescheduled. Because of this, Swift’s last time touring was the Reputation Stadium Tour. Her fan base has exponentially expanded since the pandemic, particularly following Folklore.

HITS Daily Double (via PopBase) has reported that tickets for Swift’s next tour will go on sale in November. While the site’s reputation doesn’t appear to be the greatest, the news has gone viral online.

Between a panic about being able to purchase tickets, let alone what the setlist will look like with a wide-ranging selection of new songs, the announcement for Swift’s even potential ticket sales has sparked a Swiftie craze.

Tensions have risen between longtime Swifties and new fans online, with the question of whether to gatekeep tips and information on how to secure tickets causing conversations on both Twitter and TikTok. Others have taken to just joking, with the hopes of by pretending not to be a fan, that the newbies or those casually not familiar with “Taylor’s Versions” of albums might give up and stay home.

“taylor swift was misogynistic in 2010 writing a song like better than revenge so you really shouldn’t buy those tour tickets and better leave them for people like me who don’t care,” another user wrote.

Continue scrolling for a few more fan reactions to Taylor Swift (potentially) dropping new tour dates in November.

In his songs, Bill Callahan tackles the big subjects: love, nature, death, the passage of time, how the stillness of everyday life belies constant transformation. But he has a way of approaching these weighty topics in a weightless manner, whether it’s inserting a dryly witty lyrical aside into an existential crisis or approaching his words with a remarkably understated vocal, which over time has come to resemble a cross between Leonard Cohen’s stoicism and Willie Nelson’s nimble emotionalism.

That the 56-year-old indie-rock veteran has produced so much good work so consistently over the course of more than 30 years — both as the man behind the ’90s lo-fi outfit Smog or under his own name — ought to not make his latest album due Friday, Reality, any less special. Described by Callahan as a reaction to the forces (political, cultural, technological) that have undermined the verisimilitude of daily existence, the album leavens philosophical musings with music that melds Townes Van Zandt Texas folk with ethereal jazz splashes and starry-eyed psychedelia. It is, of course, beautiful and moving music.

In conversation, Callahan talks the way he sings — softly, deeply, and with thoughtful contemplation. When asked to place Reality in his overall body of work, he pauses. He thinks. And then he is unsure.

“As a whole, I can’t really wrap my head around my entire back catalog as one thing. When you look back at yourself, there are puzzle pieces that don’t seem to fit the way that you think of yourself now. It’s like, “Oh yeah, I was living in this apartment, and why would I ever live in that awful place?” But at the time, you were fine with it. I think the records are kind of the same, especially if you’re covering that much time.”

Ahead of Reality‘s release, I asked him to talk about nine of his albums. I could have asked about twice as many, but for the sake of time I selected most (though certainly not all) of the Bill Callahan/Smog albums that mean a lot to me.

Julius Caesar (1993)

That was a very important and surprising record to me. The arrangements are often quite strange and daring, I would say. But they work and I think the songs are strangely catchy. It’s the first time that I made a record where all the songs are great, in my opinion. I think maybe three-quarters of the record is recorded at home on a four-track, but then there’s a few songs that I did in the studio. That was the first time I’d ever been in a real recording studio. And it’s an important record in that respect, too, because I was growing up.

I needed to work with a four-track because it was baby steps. I wasn’t ready to work in a studio. The nature of the way that I worked would’ve cost billions of dollars. There was a lot of exploring and rule-breaking, in unconventional and not aesthetically pleasing ways. I don’t know how I would’ve even done that in a studio, a real studio. And I need to in complete control, which I wouldn’t really be in a studio.

It was all about the lyrics and the overall feel or sound of a song. The type of things that I was trying to achieve didn’t involve pretty singing or nice guitar work. That just wasn’t on my shopping list.

Red Apple Falls (1997)

That is also a very important record. I’m not going to say that about each one. [Laughs.] It was the first time I worked with an engineer or a producer — Jim O’Rourke — who actually cared about the sessions, who liked the music and was enthusiastic. I’d had a bunch of not-so-great experiences leading up to that with just picking random, “Oh, here’s a studio near my house” places. [1996’s] The Doctor Came At Dawn, that album was recorded mostly in a studio, but just with whoever was there when I showed up.

I had recorded some with a drummer leading up to that, but this was the first record where I’d tracked the whole thing with a band. You realize how much the drummer just adds to a song — to the power of a song — so easily. A friend of mine was listening to “Inspirational” — it’s the second to last song on the record — and she was like, “Were you smiling when you sang this song?” And I was, just because the drums made me so happy.

I had ideas of what instruments I wanted on the record, and for a lot of it, I would just hum something for the player to play. I know definitely on Knock Knock, which was the next one, that I wrote some very basic ideas on keyboards, and then Jim wrote them out and made them more musical. He wrote notation for the players.

As I started playing live more, that made me want to make music that could be played live. Whereas the early records were kind of the opposite goal. I wanted to make something that never be recreated again. I started small with the intention of never playing live. I don’t know why. I probably just knew that I couldn’t handle it, so I made up that little excuse.

I did my first show in about ’91, I think. I realized then how different it was. But back then, at least, it was the only way to get people to your music, to just show up on some bill and play it for them, I think I was hoping that there was some other way, but there isn’t really.

Knock Knock (1999)

That’s a very important record. I’m just kidding.

It is though!

Actually it is, yeah. With Red Apple Falls, I believe we recorded and mixed that in five days. That sounds crazy. At the most, it was seven days, but I think we recorded it and mixed it in five days. So that record is just what happened, basically. There wasn’t a lot of time for working on things. With Knock Knock, it took a little more time, probably 10 days or something. Also, as with Julius Caesar, I was surprised by how many good songs I had.

A lot of times I’ll make records where there might be an introduction-ish song to the rest of the record or to a bigger concept. On Reality, the first couple songs, “First Bird” and “Everyway,” they are fine songs, but they’re also very much playing an introductory role to some more freestanding songs. With Knock Knock — I don’t know what’s on there, 10 songs? — they’re all kind of freestanding and they could all be singles or greatest hits. There’s no bridge or introductory or groundwork type of songs. They’re all hits.

Dongs Of Sevotion (2000)

I tend to look at that as a trilogy: Red Apple Falls, Knock Knock, and then Dongs of Sevotion. That record was more pieced together in different recording sessions. I worked with different people, different drummers, and different people for different tracks. And it has the specter of death. There was a guy, Phil Bonnet, who was the engineer for Red Apple Falls and Knock Knock, and he was a good working pal of Jim O’Rourke’s. It was an intense but short work with this guy, and then he died in a car crash after Knock Knock. But I liked the studio that he had worked at and I did some of it there, and that was kind of spooky because Phil wasn’t there anymore.

“Dress Sexy At My Funeral” was the only poem I’d ever written. I wrote it a few years before all the other songs, and I thought, “There’s no way I can sing this” And I just put it in a drawer. I do find that whenever I get an idea to do something that isn’t music, that is writing, I tend to tell myself, “Oh, you’re not a playwright, you don’t write movie scripts, you’re a songwriter, sorry.” Everything becomes songs because that’s what I know how to do. So, that’s a prime example of that.

I have to ask about the album title, as it’s one of the great titles of all time. How did you come up with it?

I think I was considering calling it Songs Of Devotion, and I saw that Depeche Mode had a record called that. So just to make it unique and make it mine, and I stumbled on that.

A River Ain’t Too Much Love (2005)

I moved out of Chicago to Austin, Texas because I was trying to make some big changes in my life. I suddenly wanted to live in a house instead of an apartment. I wanted a yard, I wanted a driveway to park my car, and all these things that are very hard to achieve in Chicago unless you have lots of money. I also learned to finger-pick for that record, and I switched to nylon string, classical-style guitar. So, that was a big difference — learning a new thing, a new thing I was embracing. When you stop strumming and you start finger-picking, there’s a hole in the middle of the song. Because a guitar strummed is the center of the song, basically. If you take that away, that leaves a big space. I was trying to use my voice in the center instead of a strumming guitar with a voice on top.

I wanted to release A River Ain’t Too Much Love under my own name because of all these big changes. It was like, “What is this stupid name that doesn’t mean anything to me?” Someone goes in a record store and they see something by Smog and that plants something in their head — could be appealing, could be unappealing. I didn’t want to plant this thing that didn’t mean anything to me. I didn’t want to then expect people to be like, “Oh, I’ll ignore that name and I’ll listen to this record,” which no one does.

It was all part of starting over. But my record label — they apologized for this — but they freaked out and got scared when I said I wanted to use my name, for obvious reasons. So I went with Smog for that last record, and then I changed it on the next one. Some people are still confused, but as far as sales go, they stayed the same. It was not like I was starting from scratch in that respect.

Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle (2009)

I was ready to make a record with strings again, like I had done for [1995’s] Wild Love. A lot of strings and horns. I think I was thinking in those terms as I was writing the songs, because with something like “Faith/Void,” the feel of the strings is pretty integral to that song taking off the ground and achieving flight. So, if I remember correctly, I was picturing strings and horns as I wrote the songs.

“Jim Cain” is your most streamed song. Any thoughts on why that track in particular is popular?

Well, I don’t know if a lot of people love it. A lot of people have heard it, maybe at a very low volume as they listen to a playlist. Those numbers can be misleading. I just think that happened to get on a playlist or two that was popular. I do think it’s one of my best songs, so that is why I’m constantly streaming it.

Ha! So you’re the one admiring your own handiwork.

I was reading a lot of James M. Cain. I read a little bit about his life and it seemed like he wasn’t really as embraced as much as I felt he should have been. I think he maybe was an alcoholic and died at a pretty early age, if I remember correctly. So I wanted to write a tribute to him. If you feel someone is under-appreciated, you can’t really control popular opinion. All I can do is make my own celebratory song for someone, and that’s kind of what that is.

Apocalypse (2011)

When I first moved to Texas, I always felt like I was in a Western. Austin was a lot less developed then, so there were a lot more old buildings and things just crumbling and it had a very Western feel. So, I think that just kind of seeped into my perspective. I believe that’s the first record that I worked with Matt Kinsey. Am I right? Do you know? I’m pretty sure that was the first.

It was.

I had done a couple little one-off things for compilations with him, just as I was getting to know him and finding out what he was capable of. He had a key role in Apocalypse, the record’s moving into that direction. Matt is capable of playing anything. He can play on a sheer noise record or a top 40 pop song. Without Matt, I don’t know what these records would’ve sounded like.

That record, like all my records, is basically the band recording live, and then we might add some overdubs or fix a vocal word or two. But everything’s live, including the vocal, which applies its own energy and cohesion. And it’s also much quicker, as I found out recording Shepherd In A Sheepskin Vest. That was definitely the longest I’ve spent on any record. And that was partially due to the fact that, for the first time, I went in, recorded my parts, and then I started adding people to it, which for some reason really slows down the process. When you record the band, there might be one part by somebody that’s not their best take, but you have to pick the most good version. And it always turns out fine, because the bass note that I hated but decided to live with is actually the coolest thing on the record.

Do you remember recording “Riding For The Feeling”? The performance on the record always transfixes me.

That was probably really easy, probably first take or something. It’s the kind of song that plays itself, because it’s just kind of slow and easy and it’s very obvious.

It’s my favorite vocal of yours.

Well, if a song plays itself, that takes a big burden off of my mind. Kind of like with “Inspirational,” which I referred to earlier. It’s like this song is just an 18-wheeler cruising down the empty highway and I don’t have to do anything but sing. I’m just relaxed and happy.

Shepherd In A Sheepskin Vest (2019)

Is it true you considered quitting music after becoming a father in the mid-2010s?

I couldn’t find a kind of reconciliation point of going down the path of being a father. There didn’t seem to be any stops along the way that involved making music. It felt like a very full path already. Also, I was learning something brand new, which used up all my brain power and my body power. I was not getting enough sleep for a few years and not having time to myself. I started seeing a therapist to try to help me have a life where both things are possible. It was strange, because we lived in Santa Barbara for about 10 months, so my wife would go to grad school. I thought I’d always wanted to live on the ocean or very close to the ocean. I finally got that chance and I found it actually more of a distraction because whenever I was in my house I was like, “I should be at the ocean now.” It was so close. So that was a lot of energy, as time was absorbed. I got out just in time.

Reality (2022)

I watched the world fall apart, as everybody did. I watched the country fall apart. I watched the world fall apart in slow motion. And I saw clearly that we had no leader, at least not one that was going to lead us out of this. I just felt like I wanted a guide — somebody smart to tell me what the fuck is going on, what is real, what is propaganda, what’s really going on here, somebody. So I looked to various philosophers and comedians, but no one really worked. Some people would say some things that made sense to me or rang true, but then they would say something else that negated that. And I eventually decided the important thing was focusing on myself and my family and my neighbors and the neighborhood, and that was the best path for me to carry on. What I learned by going through that was I wanted to turn that into songs, in case anybody needed some guidance or corroboration for their thoughts. Just someone saying the same thing that they may be thinking.

Also, there’s the big mess that social media is, and how we haven’t evolved yet to be able to handle that. Everyone talks about how great this shit is, but no one ever talks about how maybe it’s too powerful, it’s too different, that we can’t actually handle it. It’s addictive, in the same way that we shouldn’t all be taking heroin. It’s not going to work, if we’re all taking heroin. Society is not going to last very long.

This is, in a way, a protest record. But you don’t mention a specific thing you’re protesting, which makes it more universal and timeless.

I think in some way that a lot of good songs are protest songs, because they’re protesting the silence of no song. Usually if someone is writing a traditional protest song, there’s a utopic vision somewhere in there of, “Don’t do this, we should all do this.” I do think that songs are little utopias for people to live in for three or four minutes.

There’s dream imagery that recurs throughout the songs, which is not new for you. Why are you interested in dreams?

We don’t pay enough attention to our dreams. Most people treat them as a novelty. Like, “Oh, listen to this silly, crazy thing that I dreamed last night,” But a dream is a hand of tarot cards — you can read it or try to read it. I wonder what would happen if we focused more on dreams. I’ve always said politicians shouldn’t give those stupid bullshit speeches full of platitudes and lies, they should just talk about what they dreamed about last night and then we could decide if we think they’re the person for the job.

I haven’t been dreaming lately. It’s hard when you don’t remember your dreams.

When you remember your dreams, do you remember good dreams or just bad dreams? Because I feel like I only remember bad dreams.

They’re usually somewhat troubling or so puzzling that they upset you because obviously our brains want to make sense of everything, our conscious brains. But I think I remember good dreams, too.

You said you haven’t remembered a dream in a while?

Yeah. I think it’s because I started taking these CBD gummies before bed and I think that blocks, well, all that stuff. It slows down the sleep cycles. It makes the cycles longer and I think it keeps you in the non-dream state for a lot longer than normal. I’m planning on taking some days off from the sweet, sweet gummies.

The Muppet Christmas Carol is the only adaptation of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens that matters, but at least Spirited found a new angle. The musical-comedy, which stars Ryan Reynolds as Ebenezer Scrooge and Will Ferrell as the Ghost of Christmas Present, is told from the perspective of the ghosts.

The teaser trailer, which you can watch above, promises elaborate song-and-dance numbers with Reynolds, Ferrell, and Octavia Spencer, and the Ghost of Christmas Present reminiscing about the first kid that he saved. “It was this little sick kid. What did they call him?” he wonders. “It was Tiny Tom,” Scrooge interjects, but the Ghost is sure it was Little Larry… or maybe Micro Mike… or possibly Super Small Steve.

Here’s the official plot summary:

Each Christmas Eve, the Ghost of Christmas Present (Will Ferrell) selects one dark soul to be reformed by a visit from three spirits. But this season, he picked the wrong Scrooge. Clint Briggs (Ryan Reynolds) turns the tables on his ghostly host until Present finds himself reexamining his own past, present and future. For the first time, A Christmas Carol is told from the perspective of the ghosts in this hilarious musical twist on the classic Dickens tale.

Spirited comes out in theaters on November 11 and Apple TV+ on November 18.

Both Elon Musk and Vladimir Putin are denying a recent report that the two spoke to each other ahead of Musk sharing a Russia/Ukraine peace plan that resulted in the Tesla CEO being widely criticized on Twitter. It was so blatantly conciliatory to Russia that even Lindsey Graham came out of the woodwork to chastise Musk.

According to an Eurasia Group report from journalist Ian Bremmer, Musk allegedly spoke to Putin ahead of the tweet, which is why the peace plan was filled with a grab bag of goodies like ceding Crimea to Russia. As the report went viral, Musk denied speaking to Putin when asked if the allegations were true.

“No, it is not,” Musk tweeted. “I have spoken to Putin only once and that was about 18 months ago. The subject matter was space.”

According to Business Insider, the Kremlin also issued a denial and essentially said the same thing as Musk: The two last spoke a year and a half ago. The only difference between the statements is the Kremlin didn’t specify what the two discussed.

Bremmer, however, has already pushed back on the seemingly coordinated denials. He issued a statement on Twitter defending the report:

“Elon Musk told me he had spoken with Putin and the Kremlin directly about Ukraine,” Bremmer said. “He also told me what the kremlin’s red lines were. I have been writing my weekly newsletter on geopolitics for 24 yrs. I write honestly without fear or favor and this week’s update was no different. I’ve long admired Musk as a unique and world-changing entrepreneur, which I’ve said publicly. He’s not a geopolitics expert.

(Via Business Insider)

Elon Musk and Nick Cannon are seemingly competing to see which family can start their own basketball team by having so many offspring. Both celebrities have fathered a small army of at least 9 children, and the probably won’t stop! But, as we know, Musk is not one to back down when he is challenged by a peer.

Musk keeps revealing various infants that he has produced (much after the fact), so it’s really hard to be sure how many he actually has. While speaking with The Financial Times, Musk was asked if he would have more kids anytime soon, to which he said that he is “pretty sure there are no other babies looming.” That sounds like a veiled threat!

The billionare didn’t rule out the possibility of new kids, saying that he is an “autumn chicken.” If a spring chicken is a young chicken, it an autumn chicken mean he’s on his way out and wants to have even more kids? Who is really to say? It seems like he made up that phrase anyway.

Most recently, Musk had a second child with Grimes in December 2021… one month after welcoming twins with an executive at one of his companies, though that wasn’t revealed until months later. Aside from those three, Musk also has another set of twins and a set of teenage triplets, one of whom is currently estranged from the billionaire. Musk has said, “I have very good relationships with all the others. Can’t win them all,” which is a really nice thing to say about a human being that you brought into the world. He is probably much too busy trying to think of a good joke to impress Nathan Fielder, so he has no time for more kids. Hopefully.

(Via Page Six)

How does a band followup a massively successful platinum album with four Billboard charting singles packing anthemic adrenaline rush choruses that can electrify a whole stadium of people? For Imagine Dragons, the obvious move was to link up with legendary producer Rick Rubin and record a two-part follow-up at his Shangri-La studio in Malibu. But Imagine Dragon’s Mercury — Acts 1 & 2 (the second part of which released just this summer) isn’t a loud and proud victory lap that chronicles Imagine Dragons as they continue to solidify themselves as one of the biggest rock bands of the 2020s. Those stadium-ready bangers are still in adequate supply, but at its heart, it’s a deep and contemplative two-part album that chronicles loss, grief, loneliness, and, especially in Act 2, a celebration of what it means to be left alive in the aftermath.

“We went into it not knowing it was going to be two albums. We sat down with Rick Rubin who produced it and went through a lot of demos that I had worked on over the previous years” singer Dan Reynolds tells me over Zoom, “There were two prevalent themes that Rick had pointed out. I dealt with quite a bit of loss. I lost quite a few people in my life. Then there was also really a prevalent theme of, ‘and then what?’ Post grief and seeing the world differently, we really felt like we couldn’t tell that in one album properly, and so, it was Rick’s idea actually to do two records.”

While that all sounds incredibly heavy, Mercury — Acts 1 & 2 isn’t full of somber sounds and depressing dirges, Imagine Dragons hasn’t gone and made their Radiohead record, they’re still bringing that sonic intensity that has earned them multiple stadiums worth of fans, but they’re doing it in a totally new way. This is best exemplified by Mercury — Act 2 single “Sharks,” which is playful in a way the band rarely is and features a music video that explores Reynolds home town of Las Vegas. It serves as a celebration of the city that made them the band they are today.

“I’ve lived in Vegas my whole life. Vegas is the reason our band is successful. None of us had parents that were giving us money to live, so the only way we paid for rent was playing cover gigs at the hotels on the side. We’d do six-hour shows at O’Shea’s, which is the cheapest beer on the Strip, so we really owe a lot to Vegas.”

That deep love is mutual. There aren’t a lot of other bands the city would let surf the Bellagio fountains, but Imagine Dragons do just that in the “Sharks” video directed by Drew Kirsch, which follows Reynolds in an Ocean’s Eleven-indebted tribute that thumbs its nose at all the people who have written the band off as too serious. “Sharks” is a lot of fun, and it’s informed by Reynolds’ own relationship to the city that made him.

To get a little more acquainted with Reynolds’ Las Vegas, we asked the singer for his favorite Vegas haunts, from the finest hotel eats to the hidden gems off the beaten path. Let’s dive in!

What’s your favorite Las Vegas breakfast spot and what’s the go-to order?

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I love this place called Neighbors. It’s in the Summerland area, I just love typical, normal, boring breakfast. Eggs, bacon, pancakes. I don’t need it to be fancy. In fact, I don’t like it to be fancy. I just want greasy spoon breakfast. I’m hungry, actually, right now talking to you about it. Salivating. Breakfast is my favorite meal of the day, so I get really excited to go there and just sit down with my kids or friends, and have a good meal.

What is one Vegas bar people have to visit?

The Chandelier

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Aside from the local stuff, I would say if you’re just looking for a great bar in Vegas to try a special drink, I would go to the Cosmo Bar, and get a drink called the Sichuan Flower. It’s this special drink that they have where you eat a flower and it’s very strange tasting, but it changes your taste buds. You try the drink before you have the flower first, to understand what the drink is and then you chew up the flower and it changes your taste buds and the drink tastes completely different. It becomes sweet and interesting, and it’s just a fun experience.

It’s at the Chandelier bar, I believe it’s called, because there’s this huge chandelier over it. But you feel very Vegas. You’ll sit in that chair and you feel like you’re in an Ocean’s Eleven movie or something. But if you’re looking for a more dive bar-type scene, the Bunkhouse is the go-to.

What’s your favorite hidden gem in Las Vegas?

The Outdoors

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The Bunkhouse is a really cool venue [recently closed], and the Beauty Bar [permanently closed]. I don’t know if the Beauty Bar is still there, actually. I haven’t been to the B Bar in a while. Both cool venues with local acts that are great. And I really love the outdoors. So, not a lot of people know that Vegas draws in tons of bikers and climbers, like Alex Honnold.

A lot of people live there because there are great trails, and the Red Rock Mountains are beautiful, and Lake Mead is there, so you can go to the lake. There’s camping and skiing not that far out, with Mount Charleston. There’s just a lot of cool outdoors available to people that live there. It’s like anytime I tell someone I’m from Vegas, they assume I was raised in a hotel, or something. Bathed in the Bellagio fountains. People really don’t understand that there are houses, and parks, and there are farmer’s markets. Vegas has got a lot to it. And you can have the party on the Strip, if that’s what you want, but you can also have the mountains, or you can have suburbia. It’s whatever you want it to be, Vegas has that.

Circling back to the venues, what makes them special?

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The Bunkhouse and the Beauty Bar both have this local feeling to them, where everybody who’s in the music scene knows each other and it feels small, even though Vegas feels huge, it also feels very small in some ways. People in Vegas love to celebrate its localness. For instance, when the Golden Knights hockey team moved in, everybody was there every night. It was completely sold out. They get behind it, it’s on every car. Vegas wants to have culture desperately so there’s a real passion to the little bit of local culture that there is. It’s not Seattle or something, where it’s just booming with culture, and tons of farmer’s markets. It doesn’t have that California thing to it. But it’s on the up and up. And when it does happen, it’s because there’s really passionate, awesome people that put on neon reverb festivals, that’s been a staple there for a long time. That’s literally because there are just a few creatives that make it happen. It’s pretty rad. A lot of effort is put into it, but you appreciate that when you’re there, and celebrate anybody who’s really making that happen.

What’s the best late-night dinner spot? Somewhere to go post-casino?

Secret Pizza

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Okay, so, there’s a couple things. There’s this hidden pizza spot at the Cosmo. So, if we’re talking about the Strip and you’re thinking, “What’s cool little gem?” This is it. It doesn’t even have a sign. You just have to know where it is. You go around this corner, and then you’re in this little pizza shop. It’s in the middle of the Cosmo, which is weird. A lot of people probably just walk right by it. But the pizza’s actually super good. I think it’s called ‘Secret Pizza’ or something like that.

Kame Omakase

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If you’re off the Strip, though, that’s where the magic really happens. I think Vegas has the most Michelin stars in a city in the world. If you’re looking for fine dining, look at all those hotels, it’s awesome. But to be honest with you, where the real magic is off the Strip, on the west side. There’s this incredible sushi place called Omakase that… I’ve had sushi all over the world now, and it really holds up… You feel like you’re in Japan, it’s incredible.

Nittaya’s Secret Kitchen

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There’s a place called Nittaya’s’s Secret Kitchen… I think it is called Nittaya’s Secret Kitchen. Why is everything secret in Vegas? Something feels a little weird about that. I want to get it right, though, because she’s really awesome. It’s a Thai restaurant and it’s so good.

La Strega

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It’s a really great Italian restaurant. Highly, highly recommend.

Lotus of Siam

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So, if you love Thai food, there’s Nittaya’s Secret Kitchen on the west side. But if you’re on the east side, there’s this place called Lotus of Siam that would blow — actually, I’m going to give this as my number one recommendation in Vegas. If someone’s passing through, and everybody’s like, “Well, we could go to the Bellagio,” and you want to be super cool and be like, “Well, why don’t we get off the Strip just a little bit and go to this local place?” It’s the best type of food ever. It’s on Sahara, East Sahara, and it’s so good. It’s crazy good. It’s actually pretty hard to get in, because it’s just always packed. But I highly recommend it.

What’s on the itinerary for the best day in Vegas from morning to night? Without the casino stuff.

Farmer’s Market/Hiking at Red Rock/Walking Old Vegas

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I would start your day out by going to the farmer’s market… And I’m just going to suppose you’re there on the weekend. Go to Farmer’s Market at the Summerland Mall, that is a fantastic farmer’s market. Lots of great produce, surprisingly, and local people that make incredible food and just bring it. There’s everything you could want, from local beef jerky to vegan sweets. There is always someone out playing music, and they’re actually really talented, which isn’t always the case at farmer’s markets. So, I’d start the day by going to the farmer’s market.

Then I would probably go to Neighbors for breakfast, that place I recommend to you. I would then go take a hike at Red Rock which is just 20 minutes, it’s not a hard drive at all. So, 20 minutes, go to Red Rock, go on a hike. There’s also some really beautiful lookout spots there that you can see the whole Strip, and take it in from the beauty of nature. You could also go on a bike ride out in Red Rock.

Then as the evening draws in, I would look at what local band is playing the Bunkhouse. Then I would wander to Fremont Street. The Fremont Street experience is old Vegas. A lot of people are like, “Oh, let’s go to the Strip,” and they go to Cosmo, and all these things, and it’s great. But I would recommend you go to Old Vegas. Walk it. There’s lots of performers, kind of that old weird Vegas vibe that’s the best part of Vegas. The weirdness and lots of sloppy drunk tourists that will make you smile. They have these deep-fried Oreos, and deep-fried Twinkies that are just so good, but so disgusting at the same time. And then, for me, typically it’s have friends over at the house, and cook some good food and have some cereal. Late-night cereal. That would be a Vegas Day.