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In the final years of his life, Tom Petty had dreams of releasing the ultimate version of Wildflowers, his beloved 1994 triple-platinum-selling album.

If you love the record, you probably know the legend: Petty had spent nearly two years making Wildflowers, accumulating enough songs for a double album. But he was persuaded instead to put out a (still expansive) 15-track single LP instead. It’s hard to fault this decision — Wildflowers spawned hits like “You Wreck Me,” “You Don’t Know How It Feels,” and “It’s Good To Be King,” and stands with Full Moon Fever and Damn The Torpedoes as one of Petty’s most popular records. But he knew he had a wealth of strong material that few people had ever heard. So, starting in 2013, Petty began plotting a reimagined reissue of Wildflowers outfitted with the tracks that got left behind.

This collection, called All The Rest, was almost released in the mid-2010s. But Petty held it back. He wanted to keep working on it. Occasionally, however, he would proudly play an unreleased track for a friend or family member. He knew he was sitting on an artistic goldmine.

Petty kept on thinking about Wildflowers during his final tour in 2017, even contemplating a special series of shows in which he would perform the album in its entirety with guest singers. But these plans were not meant to be. One week after the tour concluded in September, Petty died. He was 66.

Fortunately, not even Petty’s passing could hold back Wildflowers. A new box set out Friday, Wildflowers & All The Rest, includes the original album and the 10-song adjunct record that Petty envisioned, plus dozens of good-to-excellent outtakes, acoustic demos, and live tracks.

For fans of Wildflowers, the box set is an essential addition to the record’s legacy. When the sessions began in the summer of 1992 with producer Rick Rubin, Petty had recently turned 40 and was in the midst of a career renaissance sparked by the success of Full Moon Fever. His commercial stature afforded him the time and space, free of record-label meddling, to make exactly the kind of album he wanted. But while he was riding high professionally, he was dealing with fractured relationships in his personal life. His marriage to his first wife, Jane, was falling apart, and he was tiring off the oft-contentious dynamic with long-time Heartbreakers drummer Stan Lynch.

The album then was both a passion project and a refuge for Petty, a place where escape his problems while also examining them via his most personal collection of songs. This “hangout” aspect of Wildflowers’ creation also carries over to the experience of listening to it — if Full Moon Fever is all about the songs, then Wildflowers is all about the vibe (and also many remarkable songs). It’s the kind of album you want to live inside of.

For the people who helped Petty to make it, Wildflowers remains part of the architecture of their own lives. I spoke with three people who were intimately involved in the album’s creation: Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench of The Heartbreakers, and producer/engineer George Drakoulias. This is their story.

Benmont Tench (Heartbreakers keyboardist): I can talk about this stuff all day. I followed Mudcrutch around because I thought they were a great band. I was a fan when I joined. When that band broke up, I was gutted, because I wanted to keep playing with Tom and Mike. Then Tom liked the band I put together for some demos — we had Mike and Stan and Ron [Blair]. It’s like, “Hallelujah, I get to play again with Tom and Mike.” I come from just a fan standpoint and wanting to evangelize the band and to evangelize Tom.

Mike Campbell (Heartbreakers guitarist, Wildflowers co-producer): It seemed like there was a mutual respect and love there. It was just magic and a miracle, really, that it happened. We met each other and we ran down a dream together for 50 years.

George Drakoulias (Wildflowers consultant): Tom would do this old Southern football coach voice: “I’m out here looking for starters. Y’all want to start, you come onto my team.” I don’t want to sit here and say everybody knew it was going to be the most special record of his career. But no matter what was going on, everybody was paying attention. No one was phoning it in. Everybody was focused on the work.

MC: I know a lot of fans tell me that’s their favorite record. So it must be something that connects with people.

In mid-1992, Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers were in a unique position — for the first time in years, they had nothing planned. In the prior three years, Petty had put out two of his most successful albums, 1989’s Full Moon Fever and 1991’s Into The Great Wide Open. After several rounds of tours, he was now settling into an open-ended period when he would have the time and freedom to write and record songs on his own schedule. It would prove to be a pivotal time in Petty’s life and career, starting with his partnership with producer Rick Rubin, who shepherded the remainder of his ’90s output. Sessions for what became Wildflowers commenced in July, but Petty and his band were already tinkering with songs before that.

BT: We recorded four or five of these songs with Stan and Howie [Epstein] at Mike’s house before I knew anything about Rick. I think we recorded versions of “It’s Good To Be King” and “Honey Bee” and “Time to Move On,” at least. I don’t think Tom thought we got the best versions.

MC: It started out like all our records start out. I would get a phone call and Tom would say, “Do you got any music?” I said, “Yeah, I’ll send you over something.” And he said, “I’ve got like three or four songs.” Great, let’s go record them and see what they sound like. And then we had Rick.

BT: I think I knew Rick before Tom and Mike. I was working with Rick on a record, maybe Wandering Spirit with Mick Jagger. And at the end of the day we were outside in the parking lot and Rick said, “Hey, I’m going to produce Tom.” I was like, “That’s a great idea.” Because from the get-go, I loved working with Rick.

MC: He brought a new energy to it and we had to learn to trust his instincts along with ours.

In the early ’90s, Rick Rubin was still most famous for working with rap and metal groups like Run-DMC, Beastie Boys, and Slayer. But he was pivoting to rootsier legacy acts, including Johnny Cash on the first “American” album. Rubin became a Petty acolyte after Full Moon Fever, and then met the singer-songwriter on a cross-country flight from New York City to Los Angeles. Before starting Wildflowers, he enlisted his old Def Jam associate George Drakoulias as a “consultant” on the project. At the time, Drakoulias was himself a successful producer, having steered two multi-platinum albums by The Black Crowes and The Jayhawks’ critically acclaimed breakthrough, Hollywood Town Hall. The sound of the Drakoulias’ records — organic, handmade, live in the studio — points to the aesthetic of Wildflowers.

GD: I think Rick was a little bit intimidated by Tom in the beginning. He met him first on an airplane, but when we went to go talk to him about the record, he dragged me along to Tom’s house in Encino where he was living at the time. It’s funny, back then, 25 years or whatever, I think I was less intimidated, and I would say anything.

BT: I’m telling you, he worked me so hard the first day on Hollywood Town Hall. I came home and I went, “I’m never working with this guy again.”

GD: I mean, Ben is on every track. I think we did everything in two days. I explained to him my philosophy: Take the band as far as it can go and then bring someone in with talent to finish it.

BT: I finished the second day and I was like, give me more, because it’s so good. That Jayhawks record was just so good.

GD: There was a lot of activity going on, because Tom was going to do a greatest hits record and he was going to figure out if he wanted this one to be a solo record. And he was looking for drummers. I think the idea for the record was to keep it handmade, you know what I mean?

BT: I was never not in the fold, so to speak, but they wanted to try a different rhythm section. I don’t know why — maybe just to be fresh, maybe because there was a sound that Tom had in his head or just he thought he’d stir it up. Because at that point we’d been together for at least 20 years. We went to the studio day one and he broke out some songs and there were some drummers that came in and out and we played with them and they were great. Some of them were friends of mine that played just beautifully. But when Steve Ferrone showed up, who I didn’t know yet — Mike did — everybody’s eyes just lit up. That’s the cat.

MC: We had five or six things, and it became clear to us that this was not really a Heartbreakers record. So it became a solo record at that point. It was very casual and it was all about the songs.

BT: We made the record with Ferrone never intending for Stan to leave the band. Just like Full Moon Fever, most of it is Phil Jones on the drums, but Stan played “Free Fallin’” 200 different times on the road.

In terms of sound and process, Wildflowers is a decisive departure from the two albums that precede it. Working with Jeff Lynne, Petty relied heavily on overdubs for Full Moon Fever and Into The Great Wide Open. But for Wildflowers, he wanted the musicians to play together again in the studio. That meant relying on most of the Heartbreakers, even if this was technically a “solo” record.

MC: I love the Jeff Lynne records and I would make one with him tomorrow if he wanted to. Such a wonderful guy to work with. And his process is so together and fast and creative. But we did two records with him.

GD: Wildflowers is more of an acoustic-based record. Even though Full Moon Fever was an acoustic-based record, those acoustics are stacked and layered. It’s more like a sound than an individual playing. It becomes a wash, which is great. You know, I love Full Moon Fever.

BT: I’m not on much on the previous two albums. I’m on “The Apartment Song” on Full Moon Fever, and I play a little bit on Into the Great Wide Open. But that was mostly Tom and Mike and Stan and Jeff. And I think Howie and I came in in different places where we were needed because all those guys could play piano and if they have a good hook, they’re going to do it.

MC: We just thought in the back of our minds, it’d be nice to play live again in the studio, and go back to that approach of how we started. And then Rick Rubin showed up and he liked doing records that way, too.

BT: If you build a track [with overdubs], something is static and cannot change. At a certain point, there is not going to be a surprise. Nobody’s going to make an accident that’s better than the idea they had in the first place. I love the conversational aspect of music. I really love it.

One of Tom Petty’s gifts as a songwriter was the ability to come up with fully formed songs extemporaneously. The greatest example of this is the title track from Wildflowers, which he wrote off the top of his head while recording the demo at home. The song spoke to Petty’s frayed state of mind over his failing marriage, and his desire to finally break free. But Petty made up other really good songs, too.

BT: He’d just do it in soundchecks. Or he’d do it while we were recording between other songs.

MC: He used to walk up to the mic and maybe sing a line, and then we would go, “That sounds interesting.” And then he’d sing the next line, which had this really clever rhyme. And he would just channel it right on the spot. I’ve never really seen anybody do that quite like that. It was a special talent he had.

BT: If you’re a songwriter, that can happen. It’s just that it isn’t usually “Wildflowers.”

MC: “Girl On LSD” [a beloved Wildflowers era B-side] is like that. I don’t think he even had any of the lyrics. He just kind of saw it in his head and made it up on the spot.

The process of recording Wildflowers followed a pattern: Petty would bring a song in to the band, and if the room responded well the musicians would instinctively add their own parts. This was especially true of Campbell and Tench, his best and most loyal sidemen, who are such a crucial part of his sound that they might as well be his right and left hands. When it came to the song “Wildflowers,” Tench hit upon a stunning piano lick that perfectly accented Petty’s vocal at the end of the track. It’s one of the album’s best moments.

BT: We played “Wildflowers” and I knew I wanted to play that lick at the end of the song. I practiced because when Steve came in, he’s a really precise guy. You can time him with a stopwatch. My whole life I’ve played music with different people with the kind of feel that Stan plays. Steve comes in, I’m like, holy moly, I got to find a way to play so that it fits with this guy’s feel. I was home practicing with a metronome, because I loved this part and I wanted to play it really well. I think it’s from my lifelong obsession with banjo, because that piano figure is almost like a banjo figure.

GD: They’re just a fantastic American rock band. This might be a case where the sum is as equal as the parts. Because each guy has gone on to do great things. Mike’s written amazing songs and had hits with Don Henley. And Ben’s played on thousands of records and brings his thing. As a band, they’re incredible.

BT: We would just play. If he wrote the song on a keyboard, he showed me the way he wrote it and asked me to pretty much to play that. But in general, with everybody, he’d just see what you’re going to do because that’s why you have a band.

MC: I don’t want to compare Tom and I to them per se, but it’s a very Keith and Mick relationship. I could bring music to him that he might not think of because typically when he wrote on his own, it would be jangly country strumming, which is great. But sometimes I would bring him tracks with a different approach, bluesy or whatever. I think he liked that I had a well of different music. At the same time, we had the exact same influences. So we were kindred spirits, musically. As soon as we met, it’s like, wow, you’re just like me.

BT: We were all on the same page from the get-go, from the time I saw Mudcrutch. I think McCartney said that when Ringo came in, they were like, “Holy shit!” Because when the right people play together, it’s not work. It happens.

MC: It’s mostly intuition. I think that’s why Tom liked me. I could sit down with him as he showed me the song and start playing along, not knowing where the song was going necessarily, but just intuitively filling in the right holes, making him sound better and following the direction he wanted to go. That was just a natural thing that we always had. That’s why 95 percent of the guitar parts on the records are off the top of my head. They’re not orchestrated are written out at the beginning. We never really worked that way. You just go in the moment and something happens and we always seemed to agree on what helped a song.

GD: An average Tom song, once the band got a hold of it, would sound like the best song of an average band. It was like all of a sudden it would exceed your expectations. They would bring their taste and their skill to it. It was a blessing and a curse, in a way.

One pretty good Tom Petty song that is elevated to excellence by the band on Wildflowers is “A Higher Place.” The track ends with a majestic guitar solo by Campbell, who made a habit of wrapping up Tom Petty songs with majestic solos — everything from “American Girl” to “Even The Losers” to “Don’t Come Around Here No More” to “Runnin’ Down A Dream” to “Mary Jane’s Last Dance.”

MC: I think that comes from the music I grew up on, with The Beatles, The Stones, The Beach Boys, The Kinks, The Animals. I’ve just loved the way those guitars worked within the song. It wasn’t about ripping a solo or showing off how fast you could play. It was coming up with something that really complimented the song and help the voice along. That’s the way I try to play. But I also liked to play out. I like Mike Bloomfield a lot and Clapton and Hendrix, but a lot of Heartbreakers songs aren’t in that mold. But occasionally there would be a spot at the end where there’s no vocal. You can go anywhere you want. So in those few places, I would explore a little more of the lead guitar stuff, but within a song I like to just fit in like George Harrison.

BT: I don’t know if you call it telepathy, but Michael Campbell and I, there’s an interlocking thing. Or just giving each other room, and knowing when somebody is going to play. It’s a great joy in my life to do that with Mike.

MC: We found a way instinctively to compliment each other with our tones and our parts. Tom would show us a song, and Benmont would do what came to his mind, I would hear that, and see what came to my mind. He might hear, “Oh, Mike’s going there” and he’ll answer. We were able to find a tonality between my guitar and his keyboards that made a sound. It was kind of unique to us.

As producer, Rick Rubin stayed focused on the essentials — keeping the band tight and no-frills, and encouraging Petty to come up with the best material.

BT: On some songs, he’d kind of program Steve. He’d be like, no, don’t play any cymbals. Can you go, boom, boom, flat here?

MC: I wrote the music for “You Wreck Me” at home. I was probably thinking about Bo Diddley, something upbeat and exuberant feeling. I got the chorus and structure together and gave it to Tom, on a tape with a bunch of other ideas. About a week later, he said, “I liked that, we could do something with that.” Later I said, “Have you done anything with it?” He said, “Well, you know, I don’t know, it’s in a drawer somewhere” and it got forgotten.

Later, Rick asked, “Do you have any songs?” And I said, I gave him one, but he didn’t ever do anything with it. I played it for Rick and he goes, “That’s great, I’ll go tell him to do it again.” So Rick presented it to him again and he acted like he didn’t even remember it. But he did write to it. And it did come out really good.

BT: At the end of “It’s Good To Be King,” I started playing this repetitive figure and after like six bars or something I moved off of it. Rick went, “No, no, no, you play that figure all the way to the end.” That’s the reason I love Rick.

GD: We used to love “It’s Good To Be King.” We just thought the lyrics were so much fun, and we’d quote them. “To be there in velvet” was just a great line. A lot of the lyrics became part of the lexicon of what we were doing in studio. “I’ll be the boy in the corduroy pants.”

The sessions for Wildflowers stretched from the summer of 1992 to the spring of 1994, a nearly two-year process that was far longer than the typical Tom Petty record. He wanted to take his time to make the best possible album, but he also loved being in the studio. The clubhouse-like environment of Wildflowers was a refuge during a difficult time.

MC: The thing to remember is there’s a lot of songs, but they were split over two years.

GD: We spent two years to make it sound like it was recorded in a weekend. That’s a skill.

BT: There wasn’t any pressure. I don’t think that there was a tour lined up, and I never heard about a hard finish date. It took 18 months, but we weren’t in there all that time.

GD: I think we took four days to overdub one bass part. No one was standing over anybody’s shoulder going, “You got to deliver this thing now.”

BT: We would record a bunch of songs he had and take a break and then we’d get the call to come back a month or however much later. We’d go in and Tom would have the songs. He and Mike might’ve had a notion about how to do them, but most of the time he just showed to us on guitar and on piano and we’d play it.

GD: It was kind of a problem-free zone. I mean, you can tell some of the lyrics are pretty heavy-duty and hard, but we didn’t sit there and analyze them. There were no group hugs, really. It’s fitting that we would stop the sessions on Thursday nights to watch Seinfeld. What was their thing? “No hugging, no learning.”

MC: We would record for a week, maybe two, and then maybe take a month off and just wait for new songs to come in. So in a way it was prolific, but in a way, it wasn’t. There was time to wait for the songs.

BT: The length of time wasn’t because we were slaving over it and couldn’t get the takes right. Everything came really quickly. It was a lot of fun to make the record.

GD: It became like a frat house, in a good way. Or a clubhouse. I like to call them lifestyle records — you get up in the morning and you take your shower and have a little breakfast. Then you head over to the studio, discuss what you’re going. And that was what your day was going to be.

MC: Some of these songs were in the early writing phase, and then you would live with them for a while and he’d come back and go. “I don’t like that, I got something better.” And we just kept refining it.

GD: “Don’t Fade On Me,” that was — not a difficult one — but a lot of work and care went into it. It was recorded several times in several set-ups. It was finally done at Mike’s house, just Tom and Mike playing to each other acoustically.

BT: Then Ringo shows up. I knew Ringo a little, but to have him come play with us, that was so cool. He was in The Beatles, which means he was a Beatle-quality drummer.

GD: There’s stuff like “Cabin Down Below” that was a lot of fun. We’d dance in the control room.

MC: On “You Wreck Me,” he couldn’t get the chorus quite right. And he just kept coming in and changing it and waiting for a better idea to come in. He was like that — he wouldn’t always settle with the first thing. He would live with it and improve on it as time went on.

GD: One of my favorite things is Tom’s sense of humor and just his joyful way of living. He would laugh and his whole body, literally from his toes, would just get into it. If I told him a good joke it was as good as writing a good song.

BT: There are parts of it I don’t remember recording. They sent me a copy of a test pressing and “Crawling Back To You” came on. It’s like, I’m having an out of body experience. I don’t remember recording that! And you know what? I was stone-colds sober for five years when we started the record and I’m 32 years now. It wasn’t that I was drug-addled. We were working hard. Slowly it came back, but we recorded so many songs.

So many songs, in fact, that Wildflowers was originally conceived as a double album, But Petty was persuaded by his record label, Warner Bros., to pare back to to a single 15-song record.

MC: I have no regrets about that at all. I liked the original record the way it came out and I knew eventually the other songs we’d find a home. And I thought it was probably more effective than putting out a double album at that time on a new label. It was probably a better statement just to take the best stuff and stick it on one record.

BT: I don’t think anybody made Tom do it because nobody ever made Tom do anything. It’s a hell of a lot of songs as a single CD. As a single CD, it’s probably as long as a double LP and maybe as long as The White Album. Would you have wanted “Something Could Happen” to get lost in the shuffle? I wouldn’t. I remember cutting that. We cut it with Stan and Howie, and then I think we cut it again with Steve. The one that’s on the [box set] is the one we cut with Stan and Howie, and I just loved it when Tom showed it to me. I loved the groove. I didn’t really understand why it was just put aside. At the time I got the impression that they didn’t think that we got a good take of it. But I listen to it now and I’m like, “I knew it was a good take.” I’m so glad that that song’s seeing the light of day.

In the process of assembling the new box set with producer Ryan Ulyate and Petty’s daughter Adria, the musicians rediscovered scores of songs that they hadn’t heard in more than 25 years.

BT: There’s so much stuff. Jane or Adria found some demos. Ryan would go, “Do you remember recording this?” And he’d play us something that we hadn’t heard since 1993 or ’94 and it’d be like, “Well, damn, that’s just beautiful. Yeah. I remember that. That’s the one that sounds like the Buffalo Springfield.” It was just a beautiful sense of discovery.

MC: I like “Something Could Happen,” I think that’s really good, and “Hope You Never,” which might have been released before on something. [It came out originally on 1996’s She’s The One—ed.] There’s an alternate take of “Wake Up Time,” that’s really good. And an alternate take of “Don’t Fade On Me” that I really like.

BT: There was a song that I had never heard before, “Harry Green,” which is a really beautiful song.

MC: I remember hearing it, but I think it was probably in a batch of other songs and we passed over that to work on the other songs. So it was very vague to me. But you know, it’s basically just Tom and a guitar and a story. He was really good at that.

BT: I don’t remember hearing “There Goes Angela.” Mike does, but I don’t remember hearing it at all because I would’ve been going, “Hey, we got to cut that!” We never cut it with the band.

GD: When I heard that, I was like, “Oh my God, Tom. Really? Why were you hiding that?”

MC: I remember “Leave Virginia Alone” well. It’s a very Tom song — his rhythm, his style on the guitar, and it’s very identifiable. It’s the way he writes. I know it was shipped off to Rod Stewart at one point and I can’t really speak for Tom, but maybe he figured if he was going to ship it out, that he would hold our version back till later.

The Wildflowers box set arrives just over three years after Petty’s passing. Listening to these songs for those closest to him can still be difficult.

MC: There were times when I would just say, “I really can’t do this right now,” because I couldn’t handle hearing his voice and knowing he wasn’t there. So I dealt with that, but we got through it.

GD: The acoustic demos on the box set are really fantastic. They’re really beautiful and intimate. Now it just makes me miss him more.

MC: It’s exciting to hear the stuff, that it’s good, that we can now put out and share with everybody. And I enjoyed going through the archives and hearing everything. I love the record.

BT: Mostly, it’s really, really happy. I love this band, we were so good. It was such a joy to play in The Heartbreakers and to play with Tom. Wildflowers was an extension of that.

All Heartbreakers fans are wondering: Will this band ever play together again? Nobody can say either way for now. But Campbell and Tench both say they still consider themselves members of Tom Petty’s band.

MC: I’m the co-captain. And I love those guys. I’m still in the band. Tom’s just not there.

BT: We’re family. It’s blood. You keep a band together that long because you love each other. We might get really mad at each other, but I don’t think anybody ever hit anybody. Oh, maybe Ron and Stan one time in a hotel hallway in 1977. But mad as anybody might be, nobody could go anywhere because it’s family.

MC: We’re still grieving. We have to grow through our grief to a point where we can all be in the same room and try to make music without our captain there. That’s going to take a while. It just doesn’t feel right yet to me.

BT: He was a really gifted man, and he was funny as hell. And he was a great rock ‘n’ roller. Everything he sang was real. Pretty cool for a kid from Gainesville, Florida.

Wildflowers & All The Rest is out Friday via Warner Records. Get it here.

Tom Petty is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

It’s nice to think that by this time next year, there will be a vaccine for COVID-19 and we’ll be able to go back to concerts and sporting events without concern for health. Nice, and possibly unrealistic. But no matter what happens with the virus — whether we find a cure and even if we do, if anything can afford it — at least our other national crisis will be resolved: Halloween Kills is coming out in 2021, “vaccine or no vaccine.” Phew (?).

Jason Blum told Forbes that he has no intention of delaying the sequel to 2018’s Halloween again (it was originally scheduled to come out on October 16, but due to the pandemic, it was pushed back to October 2021). “If this is still going on next Halloween? No, we’re not holding it,” the Blumhouse producer said. “Halloween Kills is coming out next October come hell or high water, vaccine or no vaccine. It is coming out.” I’ll admit that it’s extremely weird not seeing horror movies in a theater around Halloween (so much popcorn is not being dropped on the floor in a comical fashion), but at least there’s still drive-ins. And, as Blum explained, there’s always premium video-on-demand:

“I think PVOD will ultimately be great for a movie-going. I think that after there’s a vaccine, and it’s safe to go back to movie theaters again, you’ll see a lot more movies and movie theaters playing for a lot shorter time. Those things are connected because there’ll be room for more. The theatrical audience is always complaining that all there is in the movie theaters is horror movies and tentpoles. I think that’s all going to change. Honestly, for those of us who make movies and love movies, I think that’s great.”

Michael Myers: an early mask-wearing warrior.

The next Blumhouse title, The Craft: Legacy, comes out on October 28.

(Via Forbes)

This week’s planned second POTUS debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden got cancelled when Trump decided that it wasn’t worth his time to do the event virtually. Since Trump walked away from the event, ABC decided to hand that empty air time to Biden for a town hall, and not to be outdone, Trump wanted his own town hall, too. NBC stepped up, but they did it in an arguably shady way: by scheduling Trump for the same time slot as Biden: Thursday night at 8:00pm. People weren’t pleased, especially with NBC’s history of looking the other way when it comes to Trump behavior.

It’s also not possible for viewers to watch both events at once to stay informed (unless they want to do it in stereo). Don Lemon let all of his disgust fly to that effect on Wednesday night. “This not inform the electorate,” he declared. “It’s a complete ratings ploy… you should be embarrassed, NBC.”

Lemon continued to stress how silly (and strange, as well as antagonistic) it is for both events to happen simultaneously, and he argued that the equal-time rule would be easily satisfied by staggering these events on different nights or even simply a different time slot. “You don’t have to do it, at the same time, and then divide the country further by having them choose,” Lemon argued. “The whole point of it was to bring them together to have a debate.”

Instead, NBC decided to schedule their event (with Trump doing a town hall outside in Florida) after ABC had already booked Biden (who will do his thing in Philadelphia). Brian Stelter joined Lemon to spread word from what he’s heard from NBC employees: they aren’t happy, and they’re worried that this looks like “collusion.” Whatever the case, these clashing town halls will be an utter mess on Thursday night.

Horror is a very useful genre. No, really. Even the campiest B-productions, the gorefests, and early aughts parodies have something to teach us. About the root causes of our insomnia. About childhood traumas we have yet to fully explore. About our internal moral compass and the very specific level of inhumane treatment we can watch others suffer through. It can also introduce us to new fears and phobias we had no clue were lurking under our hollow shell of functioning adulthood. Mundane things, like crowds or clowns, basements, and bathtubs. Horror knows what frightens us, sometimes better than we know ourselves which is why, during this holiest of months for fans of the genre, we’re digging into one of the most chilling tropes that seems to pop up in every on-screen fright fest: the sit-down dinner scene.

Horror has understood how bizarrely masochistic our human ritual of eating together is, long before anyone was using their self-diagnosis of social anxiety to skip out on family get-togethers and Friendsgivings. Inescapable exercises in formal etiquette, the consumption of a meal someone else has prepared, the life-draining amount of small-talk necessary to survive – the dinner table truly is The Hunger Games of horror, a gladiator-esque arena where people live and die by how well they play the game.

What that game is depends mainly on who you’re dining with. Is it your significant other’s parents? Then the game is making a good first impression. Is it your extended family? Then the game is making it out without wading into a political debate with your insufferable uncle. There are all kinds of games we play at the dinner table, performances we put on so that we can fill a basic need without cutting to the meat of our psychological hang-ups. We all inherently understand how to behave during these social ceremonies, which is why watching them play out in horror movies is so damn unsettling.

In Get Out, Jordan Peele prefers staging some of the film’s most unnerving scenes around the dinner table. Whether that’s a parental interrogation over afternoon tea or a more formal verbal sparring match at the family’s formal place-setting, Peele channels the eerie calm before the storm over a five-course meal. Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) has been welcomed into the Armitage family too easily, something that discomforts both him and the audience, but his combative interaction with Rose’s brother Jeremy (Caleb Landry Jones) builds the tension to intolerable heights. As they debate MMA fighting techniques and Jeremy creepily appreciates Chris’s build and “genetic makeup,” Peele makes sure to linger on the rest of the family’s reactions, how they fidget and glance and squirm as these two men go at it. Chris is held hostage by a construct of civility throughout the film – he has plenty of uncomfortable interactions that would warrant his escape but he stays out of politeness and an ingrained sense of courtesy he’s been taught to extend to white people – and that inability to leave is magnified in this scene, slowly turning what should be an awkwardly-average rite of passage into something more sinister. It’s that ability to take something so routine and make it this bloodcurdling event that elevates other psychological horror films too.

Ari Aster has mastered it, first with his familial exercise in grief around the dinner table in Hereditary. Free of pyrotechnics and seances, the fairly normal meal reeks of the dysfunction and demonic possession to come. Annie (Toni Collette) quietly seethes, picking at her food while her husband and son, Peter (Alex Wolff) look on nervously. Peter can’t ignore the tension which leads to Annie delivering a terrifying monologue. Possessed by rage and bitterness, she blames her son for her daughter’s death and dredges up hurtful memories, hurling them at both men as her face contorts in unnatural ways. It’s another way horror often uses the communal act to tease hidden truths and buried secrets and Aster makes us writhe in our seats with the hair-raising dread he elicits in this scene.

And if the psychology of sitting down with strangers and family members to a nice meal isn’t your particular brand of nightmare fuel, don’t worry: the dinner scene serves a dual purpose. Because as unsettling as the social dynamics are, what’s physically on the table often adds another element to this edible hellscape.

The most obviously horrific items on the menu fit the cannibalistic diet. In Ridley Scott’s Hannibal, the film ends with a stomach-churning scene that uses a bit of dark humor and a certain part of the human anatomy to play up the repulsiveness of its villain’s eating habits. While Julianne Moore’s Clarice sits paralyzed at the dinner table, Anthony Hopkins’ serial killer carefully cuts into the brain of Paul Krendler (Ray Liotta), peeling back the organ’s sack and carving a piece of his frontal lobe – the part of the brain that controls manners, ironically enough – before frying it and feeding it to the guy. Scott makes sure to engage the senses in this scene, forcing us to listen to the sawing of bone, the squish of organic material being manipulated, and the sizzle of Paul’s brain matter in the pan. And Lecter almost normalizes the whole interaction, describing it’s appetizing scent and unique taste in such a bleakly funny way that you’re left confused as to whether the whole meal is comedically surreal or disturbingly wrong.

Tobe Hooper was able to do something similar with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, though his pound of human flesh came with more screams as Sally is surrounded by her psychotic dinner mates who prefer her fingers as appetizers. Park Chan-wook used his neo-noir action thriller Oldboy as a piece of subversive commentary on the evils of junk food with his live-octopus eating scene. Squiggling tentacles and lifeless appendages are nauseating on their own, but when served on a platter with serial killers, deranged animals, and revenge-driven ex-convicts, they leave an even more upsetting aftertaste.

But the horror in a good dinner scene doesn’t have to rely on threatening undertones or revolting delicacies. Sometimes, a meal can turn into a nightmare with a good bait-and-switch.

It Chapter Two did this fairly well when it gathered the old crew from Derry together for a Chinese dinner decades after they’d defeated Pennywise and forgotten the horrors of their small-town upbringing. The group reminisces on happier times, laughing at Bill Hader’s wise-cracking Richie and ribbing Ben’s recent weight-loss, ignoring the looming specter in the room, the supernatural reason why they can’t seem to recall important details about their shared pasts. It’s that sinister mystery that eventually corrupts the very food they eat, turning their joy into something dark and twisted before we have enough time to realize it.

And Aster perfected this illusion of safety when it comes to terrifying dinner scenes with his most recent work, Midsommar. Whether you view the film as an allegory about travel and colonialism, or a metaphor for toxic relationships and the corrosive nature of grief, the movie’s many feasts, all held outdoors in a blindingly bright atmosphere surrounded by beauty and nature, are some of the darkest moments of this thriller. Aster manages to use Pinterest-worthy place settings and cottage-core cult costumes to evoke a sense of calm and purity. The people have strange customs, but they’re welcoming and innocent-seeming. The food isn’t great but it’s being offered freely. It isn’t until we learn of a demented romance ritual that involves placing pubic hair in pie and menstrual blood in a glass of juice that we understand the darkness lurking in this idyllic setting.

Eating, the act of consuming something that used to be alive, is a naturally barbaric thing. We dress it up with silverware and cocktails and social rituals to make it less so. Why these kinds of scenes, whether they take place around a family’s dinner table or a cult’s outdoor feast, succeed in traumatizing us feels less concrete. Maybe it’s a combination of social anxieties and squeamish stomachs. Maybe it’s the constraint of that specific setting, the tension laying ripe on the placemat, the unspeakable truths traded over a meal when there’s nothing else to distract us from reality. Who knows? What is clear is that horror knows, and it’s starting to perfect the art of turning dinnertime into our worst nightmare.

Demi Lovato was one of the performers at the Billboard Music Awards last night, and for her time on stage, she delivered the live debut of “Commander In Chief,” a scathing criticism of Donald Trump. If Lovato was trying to make a point with her performance, the full message may not have gotten across, as some think that she was partially censored.

At the end of Lovato’s performance, the word “VOTE” appeared in giant text on a screen behind her. That wasn’t seen during the NBC broadcast, though, as the final shot was instead a close-up of Lovato. TMZ cites sources who say “the network pulled the plug on the ‘VOTE’ message because the song itself was a slam on Trump and the ‘VOTE’ message was a call to vote against him,” also noting that “show producers allegedly felt the word was too divisive and cut it from the final product.”

This left fans upset and taking to Twitter to ask questions like, “Hey @nbc any reasonable explanation on why you censored Demi Lovato’s performance of Commander in Chief on #BBMAS2020?”

Meanwhile, another user had a positive takeaway from the situation, writing, “you did it, demi. you got their attention, they censored your 4 words message, they are disturbed. people are having conversation. your purpose is fulfilled. i’m proud of you @ddlovato.”

Lovato also premiered a new video for the song last night, so check that out below, followed by more reactions to the alleged censorship.

Timothée Chalamet was director Denis Villeneuve’s “first and only choice” to play Paul Atreides in Dune, the big-budget science-fiction film that also stars Zendaya, Oscar Isaac, and sandworms. I’m sure Timmy and the CGI worms got along splendidly, but the Call Me By Your Name actor really hit it off with Harley-loving surfer bro Jason Momoa.

“I felt like Timothée was deeply seduced — or maybe not seduced, but I just felt it was like a kid being with older brothers,” Villeneuve said in a new GQ cover story. “He was younger, he was the little one on set, and everybody loved him. There’s a scene in the movie where Timothée runs into the arms of Jason Momoa, and Jason grabs him like a puppy and lifts him into the air like he was a feather. And that’s real! They really loved each other. It was very beautiful to see this young man being influenced by these people he admires.” Is anyone else picturing this scene from Dirty Dancing?

Saoirse Ronan also had some glowing things to say about her hella tight Lady Bird and Little Women co-star. After Chalamet told GQ that she would never judge him for “the Coachella of it all,” referring to his occasional love of being in the spotlight and hanging out with musicians, the four-time Oscar nominee responded with a laugh, “I’ve been to Coachella; I just never got photographed at Coachella… We’ve weirdly gone through this together for the last few years. We’ve both become more accessible. But he’s had one sort of attention — I do feel like boys get it on a whole other level. I know that ultimately what he wants is to be good at his job. And that will always steer him on the right path.”

Outside of Dune, which is scheduled to come out on October 1, 2021, Timmy will also appear in Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch (no release date) and James Mangold’s Bob Dylan movie, where he plays the former-Robert Zimmerman. There is a zero percent chance he hasn’t made a playlist with “Lay Lady Lay” on it to impress a girl.

(Via GQ)

Over the course of her career, Ariana Grande has collaborated with some big-time artists, including Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, Mac Miller, Big Sean, The Weeknd, Nicki Minaj, Future, John Legend, and plenty of others. That said, there’s a musical legend who doesn’t seem too keen on singing with her, and that’s Chaka Khan.

In a recent interview with Vlad TV, Khan asked about possibly working with Grande, and she responded, “F*ck her.” She clarified her answer, continuing, “She’s alright. She’s good on her own. She don’t need… plus, I don’t wanna sing with another woman. I ain’t got nothing to say with a woman. You say it by yourself. We ain’t gonna talk about no man. We not gon’ do none of that stuff. It’s not happening.”

The thing is, however, that the two have actually already collaborated, as they teamed up last year on “Nobody” from the Charlie’s Angels soundtrack. Khan spoke candidly about her feelings on the track during a 2019 Variety interview, saying, “It’s a cute song. It’s a song, you know, about Charlie’s Angels. It’s, you know… it’s not gonna change the world, OK? It’s a good song in a movie.”

Elsewhere in the Vlad TV interview, she cited Anderson .Paak as a modern artist she likes, saying, “He’s got a future. So there are a few young people I really would [work with].”

Watch the interview clip above, and listen to “Nobody” below.

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

Monday, October 5th, marked the American release of the Woodford Reserve Baccarat Edition. I’ve always been a fan of the Kentucky-based brand, so hearing about this new, very-pricey (we’ll get to that), super-exclusive expression left me intrigued. And, thanks to the perks of my job, that state of curiosity was soon converted into actually getting to taste the stuff.

The partnership between Woodford Reserve and fine crystal maker, Baccarat, is aimed at celebrating the connections between Kentucky and France. Woodford Reserve is located in Versailles, Kentucky — named after the city in France where royalty did their drunken cavorting. The original name of the project was Woodford Reserve Lafayette (honoring both the French general and the Kentucky city). But then came a twist. The North American sales director for Baccarat, which operates out of New York, visited Kentucky and toured Woodford Reserve’s distillery with his family.

On this tour, the guides pointed out cognac casks that were being used to finish the juice destined to become the Lafayette bourbon. This, in turn, compelled the director to inform his Parisian headquarters about this exciting expression. Baccarat promptly reached out to Woodford Reserve about taking part in the bottling, and the rest is history.

So what’s so special about this whiskey to excuse its $2,000 price tag?

Well, some of that cash is certainly attributed to the spirit. It’s Woodford Reserve Bourbon, finished in no-less-than-three-year-old XO cognac casks from France. But a whole lot of the cost comes from the bottle — which was handcrafted with Baccarat crystal and transforms into a decanter when the whiskey is gone. It takes five days to make each bottle; the stopper is also made by hand.

So far, only 2,000 bottles were made. The expression and its future are contingent on demand and, assuming it outpaces supply, the timeline on which the crystal can be made. Check my tasting notes below.

Woodford Reserve Baccarat Edition

ABV: 45.2%
Distillery: Woodford Reserve Distillery, Versailles, Kentucky USA
Suggested Price: $2,000

The Whiskey:

The bottle design is the signature Woodford Reserve silhouette and is engraved in gold with both the Woodford Reserve and Baccarat logos. It is presented in an iconic Baccarat red box and includes a handmade crystal stopper ornamented with Woodford Reserve’s initials. This is a collectible — targeted to fans and brand loyalists — but it’s also meant to be enjoyed.

Tasting Notes:

Aromatic caramel and butterscotch hit the senses before you even take that first sip. The palate captures the best of both worlds — since the cognac and whiskey have a commonality when it comes to complexity and balance. Hints of dried fruit and slight spiciness tickle the tongue, while the robustness of the French and American oak shines through without being overpowering.

You won’t experience a lingering finish, but it has a creamy mouthfeel that I most certainly welcome.

Bottom Line:

Woodford Reserve calls this their way of “elevating American whiskey globally.” Personally, I’m not a fan of the hefty price tag, but I get it. It’s the Baccarat crystal you’re ultimately paying for.

As for inside the bottle, at the end of the day, it’s still the tried and true Woodford Reserve that I love — with a nice added depth from the cognac finish.

On Sunday, the Los Angeles Lakers defeated the Miami Heat in Game 6 to win the 2020 NBA title. It marks LeBron James’ fourth championship in his already stellar career — with his third different team, no less — and a mind-boggling 17th championship for the Lakers organization.

Throughout the playoffs in Orlando, Kobe Bryant’s tragic death has loomed large over the organization, and the Lakers as a team have not shied away from the weight of the unimaginable loss and the self-imposed pressure they readily assumed to bring home this year’s title as a tribute to the NBA legend who is gone far too soon. The paid tribute to him throughout the playoffs by regularly wearing their Black Mamba uniforms, originally designed by Bryant back in the 2017 season, and Anthony Davis discussed Bryant’s influence on the team after they hoisted the Larry O’Brien trophy.

For LeBron, it was much more personal. He and Kobe had developed a unique bond over the years as friends and competitors, and the loss hit LeBron particularly hard. On Wednesday, LeBron took to Instagram to share a simple but moving tribute to the man whose enormous shoes he’s had to fill as he’s taken up the helm for the franchise where he spent his entire career.

Many players would be hesitant to play for an organization whose star player cast such a long shadow, but LeBron welcomed the challenge from the beginning, and Kobe didn’t hesitate to welcome him into the fold and pass the torch when signed in free agency two summers ago.

The Lakers will now start looking toward the future, where they figure to remain as one of the top title favorites next season with their superstar duo of LeBron and Anthony Davis. There’s no doubt that Kobe would be proud of what his friend and team have accomplished this season, not to mention their potential to continue their dominance and extend the Lakers’ legacy.

Everybody who was involved with the Lakers this season is getting a championship ring, regardless of whether they played a second of the Finals or whether they even made the trip to Orlando for the restart. Point guard Avery Bradley for instance, will be getting one, despite forgoing the trip to Florida out of concerns for the health of his son, who suffers from respiratory illness.

DeMarcus Cousins will be eligible to receive one as well, even though the team waived him February. Cousins tore his ACL in August of 2019 before he could ever suit up for the Lakers in the regular season but remained on the roster until the trade deadline while he rehabilitated.

With free agency now approaching, Cousins is looking toward his next opportunity in the league, and if his new workout video is any small indication, it appears he could be a contributor next season.

“ Patience is bitter, but it’s fruit is sweet. “ pic.twitter.com/pepq2IVGIg

— DeMarcus Cousins (@boogiecousins) October 13, 2020

The 30-year-old Cousins is coming off of two devastating injuries, and despite what the video might have us believe, it’s far too early to tell just what he might be capable of as far as a role on an NBA team is concerned. Still, it’s good to see Boogie back on the court and looking relatively smooth and agile. Hopefully, he can avoid any further injuries as he looks to make his comeback and draw interest from teams around the league.