APRIL/MAY 2024

ISSUE 016

UK

AARON FUTURE OF MUSIC

TAYLOR-
MEET THE 25 ARTISTS
SHAPING THE SOUNDS
OF TOMORROW

JOHNSON
BRITAIN’S NEXT
RACHEL CHINOURIRI
ON SHEDDING SADNESS TO
DROP THE DEBUT INDIE
ALBUM OF THE YEAR
LEADING MAN

VAMPIRE
WEEKEND
HOW EZRA KOENIG
LEARNED TO TAKE
THINGS SLOW

+
FRA FEE
RUFUS SEWELL
KRISTEN STEWART
BARRY CAN’T SWIM
SHARLEEN SPITERI
VIVIAN OPARAH
BIG SPECIAL
WALT DISCO
LUCY ROSE
FLETCHER
ANITTA
THE SACRIFICE
“The time I burned my guitar it was like
a sacrifice. You sacrifice the things
you love. I love my guitar.”
JIMI HENDRIX

Forever Ahead Of Its Time

©2024 Fender Musical Instruments Corporation. All Rights Reserved. © Iconic Images The Ed Caraeff Archive.
Contents
ISSUE

44
016

Aaron
Taylor-Johnson
From Kick-Ass to Kraven,
the incredible rise of
Britain’s new leading man

58
25 faces of
the future
The new voices shaping
the next generation of UK
music. Including Rachel
Chinouriri, Barry Can’t
Swim and Big Special

86
Vampire
Weekend
Ezra Koenig on his new
outlook and the indie
favourites’ fifth album

94
This Town
Peaky Blinders creator
“What speed are
you supposed to
Steven Knight returns with
a drama based amid the
tensions of 80s Britain

enjoy life at? It’s

bizarre to me”
Aaron Taylor-Johnson
AARON WEARS LEATHER JACKET,
VINTAGE HELMUT LANG FROM
NORDIC POETRY, TOP BY NANUSHKA,
MOTORCYCLE TROUSERS BY BELSTAFF,
BOOTS BY ANGRY ITCH FROM ROKIT

PHOTOGRAPH BY Kosmas Pavlos

Contents

86
Features
100 Kristen Stewart
After two decades in the
spotlight, she’s ready to
bare all

114 Walt Disco

The Glasgow glam-pop

58
collective rewriting their
own rules

118 Anitta
Bringing Brazilian funk
to the masses

122 Fra Fee

From Zack Snyder’s
Rebel Moon to the West The Mix 32 Ariana Grande
Why the pop princess is
Reviews 156 Style
Lifestyle must-
End, the multi- haves, from a
entering the boldest era
disciplinary star is 25 Lucy Rose of her career
149 Music Palace x Thrasher
coming into his own How the singer turned Our verdict is in on crossover to Prada’s
the devastation of a rare 34 Rufus Sewell albums by: Nia new eyewear range
130 Festival Guide illness into her most
On playing Prince
Archives, Yard Act,
2024 joyous music yet
Andrew in his infamous
English Teacher, The 160 Road test
The best that this Libertines and Lynks
Newsnight interview The Range Rover
summer has to offer, 28 Recommends Sport SV is supreme
plus all the style Listen out for the music 36 Fletcher 152 TV both on and off-road
essentials you need stars of tomorrow: from We rate the new remake
How the star is
JACK ALEXANDER; EVA PENTEL

Chalk and HONESTY healing after a career- of Shogun

138 Colombia’s to Songer and Joshua threatening illness Departments
corralejas bull Epithet 154 Film
fights 40 Travel: Rock City We rate: The Book of 12 Contributors
Inside the brutal and 30 Vivian Oparah West Hollywood is Clarence, The Trouble 18 Opening Act
blood-soaked world of The Rye Lane star on her a living, breathing with Jessica, Mothers’ 162 Last Word:
the corralejas exciting new role showcase of rock’n’roll Instinct and Drift Sharleen Spiteri

10 | Rolling Stone | April/May 2024

Contributors UK

EDITOR IN CHIEF Cliff Joannou

ART DIRECTOR Alex Hambis
FASHION AND BEAUTY DIRECTOR Joseph Kocharian
CONTENT EDITOR Nick Reilly
ART EDITOR (MATERNITY LEAVE) Laurène Pineau-Taylor
SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER Sophie Porter
SOCIAL MEDIA ASSISTANT Katerina Muszanskyj
SENIOR WRITER Will Richards
FASHION ASSISTANT Aaron Pandher
VIDEOGRAPHER Markus Bidaux
EVENTS MANAGER Lesley Harris
SUB-EDITOR Verity Willcocks

MANAGING DIRECTOR Darren Styles OBE

OPERATIONS DIRECTOR Nigel Russell

SALES AND MARKETING DIRECTOR Craig Lewis

COMMERCIAL MANAGER Andy Goddard
Dale Fox
Jack Alexander Eva Pentel COMMERCIAL CONTENT EDITOR

Photographer Photographer CONTRIBUTORS

Jack Alexander, Paris Anthony-Walker, Waiss Aramesh, Eddie
Blagbrough, Lucas Bori, Alastair James, Ben Jolley, Sam Law,
Music aside, I absolutely love the aesthetic of all of For me, Vampire Weekend’s ‘A-Punk’ was the Jessica Lehrman, Julyssa Lopez, Alex Morris, Toby Muse,
Christina Newland, Kosmas Pavlos, Eva Pentel, Carlos Parra
Rachel Chinouriri’s album imagery, so going into the soundtrack of my first Reading Festival, so to Rios, Dean Ryan McDaid, Collier Schorr, Alan Sepinwall, Dom
shoot I knew she would bring lots of personality. shoot Ezra Koenig was a nostalgic treat. That Sesto, Rob Sheffield, Anna Smith, Ann Wallace
I stuck a Tinashe playlist on, and the energy era of music when I was growing up is partly
was just super fun and chilled. I had lots of pose what inspired me to start taking photos: it
ROLLING STONE HEADQUARTERS
references prepared, but we didn’t need them — was around then I realised if I had a camera
Rachel’s confident and just knows how to move. I could get into gigs! This shoot was last- CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER Gus Wenner
It feels like there’s so much buzz about her right minute, and we didn’t have long, but the EXECUTIVE EDITOR Sean Woods
now, so it was exciting to work with her at this point. I images turned out really nicely. We shot in EXECUTIVE DIGITAL DIRECTOR Lisa Tozzi
CREATIVE DIRECTOR Joseph Hutchinson
feel like she’s a name we’ll be hearing a lot more of in a suite at the Park Lane Hotel, and Ezra was
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY Emma Reeves
the next year or so — especially since Adele recently lovely and great to photograph. I’ve wanted & DEPUTY CREATIVE DIRECTOR
shouted her out. I’m very much looking forward to to shoot for Rolling Stone UK since the PUBLISHER, EVP, HEAD OF GLOBAL Brian Szejka
seeing her blossom. launch, so I was really happy to be asked. BRAND PARTNERSHIPS
ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Jessica Grill

FOUNDER AND EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Jann S. Wenner

PENSKE MEDIA CORPORATION (PMC)

CHAIRMAN AND CEO Jay Penske

PRESIDENT George Grobar
MANAGING DIRECTOR, Debashish Ghosh
INTERNATIONAL MARKETS
VICE PRESIDENT, Gurjeet Chima
INTERNATIONAL MARKETS
ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, Francesca Lawrence
BRAND & PARTNERSHIP OPERATIONS,
INTERNATIONAL MARKETS
MANAGER, Emma Wagner
BRAND PARTNERSHIP OPERATIONS,
Sophie Porter Will Richards INTERNATIONAL MARKETS
Social media manager Senior writer
The Cowshed, Ladycross Farm, Hollow Lane,
Lack of opportunity and a premeditation of your I’m absolutely delighted to be starting 2024 with a Dormansland, Surrey RH7 6PB.
01342 872 020
life comes with the territory of growing up on a new full-time role as senior writer at Rolling Stone [email protected]
council estate. But, thanks to my parents, who filled UK. Working on in-depth storytelling for such an
our house with instruments and their collection of iconic brand is a dream for me, and I’m honoured rollingstone.co.uk | @rollingstoneuk
2 Tone, punk and Northern Soul 7-inches, music to have become part of the best team around.
became my lifeboat. I use the term “lifeboat” For my first issue on staff, I was delighted
because it’s how Steven Knight describes the to speak to Fra Fee about his multi-disciplinary
Rolling Stone UK� is a registered trademark of Rolling Stone, LLC.
importance of music in his new series, This Town. talents on stage and screen, to chat to Vampire © 2024 Rolling Stone, LLC. All rights reserved. Published under
The themes and the soundtrack resonated on such a Weekend’s Ezra Koenig about the band’s license from Rolling Stone Media, LLC.
deep level. In common with the four lead characters, psychedelic fifth album, and to interview Lucy
Copyright © Stream Publishing Limited 2024, all rights
in my early teens I joined my first band as an avid ska Rose about the extraordinary and terrifying real-life reserved. No part of this magazine may be reproduced in whole
listener in a bid to see and do more than what was experiences that led her to joyful new album, This or in part without the written permission of the publisher.
set out for me. So, when the opportunity came to Ain’t the Way You Go Out. My greatest passion, Unsolicited contributions must be accompanied by a stamped
write this piece for Rolling Stone UK, it couldn’t have though, is new music, so it was a particular joy to addressed envelope if they are to be returned. We cannot accept
responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts and photographs or for
been a more perfect fit. Thanks to the team for the help select our Future of Music list for 2024 and materials lost or damaged in the post. Letters submitted to Rolling
opportunity, and to Steven Knight, Levi Brown and to speak to Barry Can’t Swim, a soon-to-be-star Stone UK or its editors are assumed to be intended for publication
Jordan Bolger for sharing their backgrounds and love defining the UK’s next wave of dance music. I can’t in whole or in part. The mention or appearance or likeness of any
person or organisation in articles or advertising in this publication
of music with me. wait to see him soar. is not to be taken as any indication of social or political orientation
of such persons or organisations. Newstrade distribution by
Intermedia Brand Marketing Limited, Crawley, West Sussex. 01293
312001. Printed by Pensord, Goat Mill Road, Dowlais, Merthyr Tydfil.

12 | Rolling Stone | April/May 2024

 Editor’s Letter

My first time…
ON THE COVER

I remember the moment well. It was almost twenty years ago, and I was
in the back seat of my cousin’s car on the way back from a club. The
radio was playing and the song ‘Fuck Me Pumps’ by Amy Winehouse
came on. Anybody with a love of music has their own first time that
they heard a song by a new artist that grabbed them by the ears and
worked its way into their heart.
This was the first time I fell in love with not just Amy’s voice, but her
lyricism. We were all aware of the stereotypical “gold-digging” girl that Amy cut down in PHOTOGRAPHY BY KOSMAS PAVLOS
the song with such pointed, acerbic wit — you’d either seen them out on the lash or, gulp, CREATIVE DIRECTION & STYLING
BY JOSEPH KOCHARIAN
knew one. There was a relatability in her voice and the words of that song — and beyond AARON WEARS LEATHER JACKET, VINTAGE
HELMUT LANG FROM NORDIC POETRY, TOP
that, with the Back to Black album to come — which resonated with the listener. Stark, BY NANUSHKA, NECKLACE BY PAWNSHOP,
BRACELET BY GOOSSENS PARIS, RINGS,
uncompromising honesty would become Winehouse’s moniker. AARON’S OWN, ROYAL OAK OFFSHORE
SELFWINDING CHRONOGRAPH, 42MM BY
AUDEMARS PIGUET
In Amy, a new kind of British star was born. Her legacy changed British music, ushering GROOMING BY LUCY HALPERIN USING
ARMANI BEAUTY
in a new age of soul-baring female singer-songwriters. Amy tuned the world’s ears to the POST-PRODUCTION: DIENACHBARIN
likes of Adele, Jorja Smith and Olivia Dean that followed. FASHION ASSISTANT: AARON PANDHER

In this issue, with the debut of Rolling Stone’s first global Future of Music lists, we aim FIRST PHOTOGRAPHY ASSISTANT: LUKE
JOHNSON

to spotlight even more newly established or emerging artists that might capture your SECOND PHOTOGRAPHY ASSISTANT: IVYC

imagination for the first time as Amy did mine two decades ago. The editorial team at
Rolling Stone UK have whittled down an extensive list of musicians, artists and producers
that we think will shape tomorrow’s music scene. These are the people who we believe
are pushing boundaries outward and upward, redefining genre and creating bold new
soundscapes.
Rolling Stone magazine is published in 12 territories around the world, from Korea to
Australia and New Zealand via France and Argentina, and this month each publishes its
own definitive list of 25 rising stars. With this UK edition we hope we are responsible
for introducing you to at least one new favourite that will populate your playlists for
years to come.

C L I F F JOA N NOU
EDITOR IN CHIEF

14 | Rolling Stone | April/May 2024

Great Music
knows no borders
From classic artists like The Beatles
and Pink Floyd, to rising superstars
including Dua Lipa, Harry Styles
and Celeste – 1 in every 10 songs
streamed around the world is
by a UK artist. Just one example
of how UK music unites fans

© John Marshall
globally, from Austria to
Australia and Belgium to Brazil.
Join us and see things differently.

Dua Lipa
performing at The BRITs 2021
Scan the QR code to discover Blackline across the Bentley range.
Bentayga (V8) WLTP drive cycle: fuel consumption, mpg (l/100km) – Combined 22.1 (12.8). Combined CO₂ Emissions – 296 g/km.
The name ‘Bentley’ and the ‘B’ in wings device are registered trademarks. © 2024 Bentley Motors Limited. Model shown: Bentayga S.
Any colour you want, as long as it’s Blackline.
 Opening Act

Shires and Isbell

at their Tennessee
home in August,
before launching
separate solo tours
this fall

Shine on
The maximalist, oversized sunglasses

MODEL: JOAO AT IMG MODELS; HAIR AND MAKEUP BY ELVIRE ROUX AT CAROL HAYES USING
trend from the noughties is back.
Versace has channelled the early

MERIT MAKEUP AND HAIR BY SAM MCKNIGHT; FASHION ASSISTANT: AARON PANDHER
WORDS & STYLING BY JOSEPH KOCHARIAN; PHOTOGRAPHY BY EDDIE BLAGBROUGH;
2000s with a sportier feel for their
latest styles. The Italian brand’s
Medusa Horizon sunglasses keep
things clean and sleek with elegant
white and black frames, while the
brand’s heritage details, including
the iconic Medusa hardware at the
temple hinges and the designer’s
logo on the nose bridge, ensure that
a little Versace drip shines through.
Price: £292.

VERSACE.COM
XXXXXXX

18 | Rolling Stone
Nothing
matters
Building on the well-received
launch of Nothing’s flagship
smartphone, the all-new Phone
(2a) takes the product to the next
level, pushing its engineering and
craftsmanship even further for the
optimum smartphone experience.
The powerful processor boasts an
extra-bright flexible AMOLED display
for a fast and smooth experience,
while an exceptional 50 MP dual
rear camera powered by the brand’s
TrueLens Engine captures eight
frames at different exposure levels in
RAW format, before adjusting each
pixel up to five times to display the
most true-to-life result. Crucially, the
Phone (2a) delivers up to two days
of use on a full charge. Available in
Black, White and Milk colourways,
it’s competitively priced to challenge
the big smartphone brands at
£319 (8GB/128GB) and £349
(12GB/256GB). In this case, Nothing
really is everything.

NOTHING.TECH

McCartney at Abbey Road Studios,

November 2017

April/May 2024 | Rolling Stone | 19

 Opening Act

Plug in
and play
“It’s not your average guitar shop — it’s a place
where musicians can go to get inspired,” Black
Sabbath’s Tony Iommi has said of the new Gibson
Garage London, a shop devoted to Gibson guitars
and branded merchandise. Opened by the
legendary Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin, it is home
to more than 300 electric and acoustic guitars,
a custom guitar shop, and an event space. After
130 years of Gibson, it’s designed to ignite a
passion for music-making in a new generation of
prospective guitar players, welcoming anyone at
any point in their journey to turn up, plug in and
play. In the words of Sir Brian May, “It’s a new era
in rock — and the twang is still the thang!”
XXXXXXX

GIBSON.COM

20 | Rolling Stone | April/May 2024

 Coming
up roses
Audemars Piguet has collaborated with
haute couture designer Tamara Ralph to
create a limited-edition timepiece. The
Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Concept
Flying Tourbillon “Tamara Ralph” 38.5mm
watch comes in 18-carat pink gold, with
graded lush tones of brown and bronze,
as well as gold. To match the accessory’s
high-end shimmer, the campaign features
an array of sparkling talent posing with
the timepiece, including trailblazing McCartney at Abbey Road Studios,
K-pop star 2NE1’s CL (pictured), to really November 2017
bring out the star power of this special
watch. Price on request.
XXXXXXX

AUDEMARSPIGUET.COM

April/May 2024 | Rolling Stone | 21

 Opening Act

Shires and Isbell

at their Tennessee
home in August,
before launching
separate solo tours
this fall

Then and now

From the glory days of the Haçienda to co-founding The Warehouse
Project and Parklife Festival, Sacha Lord has been at the forefront of
Manchester’s music scene for the past 30 years. His new book, Tales
from the Dance Floor, tells sweat-stained stories about some of the most
iconic venues in the UK, tracing changes in nightlife culture, brushes with
criminal gangs, and the past, present and future of Manchester. Lord —
also the night-time economy advisor to Greater Manchester Mayor Andy
Burnham — uses the book to address existential threats to the UK’s live
music scene, making Tales from the Dance Floor a manifesto of how to
XXXXXXX

tackle the future as well as a misty-eyed look into the past. Published by
HarperCollins, the book will be on sale from 11 April.

22 | Rolling Stone | April/May 2024

 Super sonic
Small but mighty, Sony’s WF-1000XM5 wireless
headphones pack a lot of power. Using cutting-
edge science for premium sound quality and
the best noise-cancelling technology, they’re a
dream proposition for musicians like American
singer-songwriter Miguel (pictured), who fronts
the campaign, and DJ Prospa, who have found
the WF-1000XM5s indispensable when they’re
working on new music. To put it simply, they’re
perfect for tuning out the noise and getting in
McCartney at Abbey Road Studios,
the zone. Price: November
£229. 2017

SONY.CO.UK
XXXXXXX

April/May 2024 | Rolling Stone | 23

TheMix
WHAT’S NEW, WHAT’S NEXT, WHAT’S NUTS

Choosing
joy over
sorrow
Lucy Rose discusses her
upbeat fifth album,
This Ain’t The Way
You Go Out, and
the terrifying
rare illness it
was borne
from

PHOTOGRAPH BY Dom Sesto April/May 2024 | Rolling Stone | 25

The Mix

‘I
never really know how I’m going
to be able to talk about this stuff,”
Lucy Rose says at the kitchen table
of her Brighton home. Ostensibly,
I’m here to talk to the singer about
her fantastic fifth album, This Ain’t the Way You
Go Out, but none of it makes sense without
the context of the life-changing and medically
mystifying experience that was its catalyst.
After her tour behind 2019 album No Words
Left finished almost exactly at the start of
the pandemic, the singer planned to take an
extended period of time off, during which she
became pregnant.
Five weeks after she gave birth to her first
child in the summer of 2021, Rose began
experiencing debilitating back pain, which she
was told can be common for new mothers.
With the pain continuing to worsen and doctors
shrugging off her questions, Rose paid for an
MRI scan that revealed she had fractured eight
vertebrae and was diagnosed with an extremely
rare form of pregnancy-related osteoporosis. A
bone density scan was then undertaken. With
severe osteoporosis indicated by a score of
between -2 and -4, Rose’s result was -4.4. The
condition — a weakening of the bones — is most
common in women in their 60s and 70s; Rose’s
diagnosis came at 32.
As we talk, she speaks carefully and deeply
about the experience, quick to stress that this
isn’t a sob story, more one of defiance and often
joy. After receiving the diagnosis, Rose attended
hydrotherapy sessions and was put in contact
with a Facebook support group accessed by
women of all ages with the condition. “There’s
a few hundred on there, and it was started by a
lady in Australia,” she says, adding that she was
also put in touch with an elderly volunteer via
the Royal Osteoporosis Society (ROS). “Those
two things became probably the most important
lifelines for me,” Rose reflects. She and the
volunteer remain in touch, with plans to meet
in person soon.
Even before this life-changing diagnosis,
happiness and lightness was something Rose
knew she needed to grasp when creating new
music. The writing and touring of No Words
Left — a sombre album defined by sorrow —
had left her on her knees and in need of an
extended break. “Pouring myself into it the way
I did made me realise I couldn’t do it again,” she After slowly recovering and learning to live her drummer and bassist down to her house
reflects. “I couldn’t make another record that’s with her osteoporosis at home, Rose began for living-room jam sessions, where the
so hard to perform. It’s that really raw part of sitting at the piano for very brief intervals with improvisational and elated feel of her first ideas
me, and just full of pain. her son on her lap for as long as her back would was furthered. Calling in a favour from five
“I never talked about what that was about, allow. “It was about playing things that felt good, years ago to use Paul Weller’s studio, Rose then
ever,” she adds, before pausing. “I can talk about and wanting to be able to entertain a baby,” she brought her band and producer Kwes to the
it now for the first time, because we’re in this remembers. “He’d be smashing around on the Surrey location, where they laid down the 12
conversation. I suffered from a miscarriage, and keys, having the best time. There’s no way I’d see songs on the album in two days — six per day,
it really, really broke me for a long time. I wasn’t that and then say to him, ‘Hey, let me show you all tracked live. “If anyone is remixing these
able to talk about it, and I didn’t want to talk this really sad minor chord!’” songs and asking, ‘What’s the BPM?’ No idea! It’s
about it on that album campaign in any capacity.” As her recovery continued, Rose invited completely freeform.”

26 | Rolling Stone | April/May 2024

 This instinctiveness and positivity flows with the side-effect of infertility. “I asked them relationship with my body has gone through so
throughout This Ain’t the Way You Go Out, a that question when I was offered the drug at the many twists,” she says. “When this happened, I
record inspired by the jazz and instrumental hospital, only because I was told about the side- really had so much hatred for my body letting
funk that Rose was listening to as her movement effect through the volunteer,” Rose says, who me down like this, and not enabling me to be
slowly returned. Its first single, ‘Can You Help was eventually offered an alternative drug. “If the mother I wanted to be. It was heartbreaking
Me’, shuffles along with a jubilant energy, while I’d hadn’t had that knowledge, I would have been and really traumatic, and I saw my body as this
‘The Racket’ has a shaggy and loose feel. put on a drug that meant I couldn’t have children terrible thing.”
While the joy of these sessions and the album ever again.” Through therapy, music and the passing of
that came from them still radiates from Rose, After sharing her story in a Guardian interview, time, Rose says her feelings about her body
she has to take life slowly and be careful not Rose was approached by the ROS and told and her recovery “went full circle”, which she
to exacerbate her condition. As a result, any that plans are in place for a new peer support addresses in the album’s title track. “I wrote
touring behind the album will be extremely programme. “I’m hoping that by me saying more a song to apologise to my body and say how
limited. She also shares her concern at the stuff, it will mean they don’t shut the service brilliant I think you are, because you got through
closure of the volunteer-run arm of the Royal down,” she says. “It’s very rare, but there are it. You got me through it. You healed. You kept
Osteoporosis Society, who her husband had more of us living with this than people think.” getting out of bed every day even though you
raised significant money for by running an Alongside an anger at the underfunding of were in excruciating pain. Instead of ‘poor me’,
ultramarathon. “I had a two-hour Zoom with vital services and her unnecessarily prolonged it’s now more ‘proud me’,” she says warmly,
someone from the charity, and I said, ‘What’s journey to an official diagnosis, Rose carries breaking into a smile. “Yeah, that’s how I feel.”
going on? Why are you closing this?’” Rose with her a new defiance and determination. “My WILL RICHARDS

recalls. “I was completely isolated, and this was

my only lifeline. It’s unimaginable to think about
REFRAMING PAIN
another woman going through what I went
Battling with her
through in an even worse place.” health has made
The lack of wider knowledge also worries Rose determined
her. Osteoporosis is found almost exclusively
in postmenopausal women, and the bone-
stabilising drug often offered as treatment comes

“I couldn’t make
another record that’s
so hard to perform.
DOM SESTO; (ABOVE, INSET): JOSH SHINNER

I suffered from a
miscarriage, and it
really, really broke me
for a long time”

April/May 2024 | Rolling Stone | 27

The Mix

RECOMMENDS
STAY ON TRACK
WITH OUR PICK OF
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Koch-
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In the past 12 months, MY

Reading-born Songer
has notched up a list
CY

Joshua Epithet
of achievements that
bby
CMY
any rapper writing
bars in their parents’ bby’s east London K

garden would strive for. HQ is the kind of truly

There’s the two sold- DIY community space
out nights at London’s that most bands can
Scala, a sold-out UK/ only dream of in 2024.
Europe headline tour In it, the five-piece
and an album that went reflection of what support slots with recent EP, appropriately Partisan Records make energetic and
to number one in the Emmery is all about. stadium-fillers such as called Reborn, marks signings HONESTY have sprightly indie pop, as
hip-hop charts. That’s My Chemical Romance the bold and bright start their roots in post-punk well as host chaotic
before we get onto his Joshua Epithet and Imagine Dragons. of that era. bands of the 2010s, weekly live shows for
take on Britney Spears’ The hallmark of this Her output for 2024 sees but their new project select fans. It’s a rare
‘Toxic’, which featured D 21-year-old’s work the Slovakian star leaning MRCY is closer to ‘Kid A’-era and welcome story of
Double E and hit the UK is hazy, lo-fi tunes into bedroom pop and New Dead Oceans Radiohead. Debut EP a new band who gear
Top 40 after going viral that offer relaxing no doubt one step signing MRCY met WHERE R U is rooted in everything towards IRL
on TikTok. Expect more soundscapes before closer to playing those online during the dark electronic fog, with experiences.
of the same in 2024. packing the most aforementioned stadiums pandemic when comparisons to Burial
unexpected of in her own right. producer Barney Lister feeling apt, but there Chalk
Linn Koch- punches. ‘Cannibal’, a discovered vocalist are pop sensibilities Belfast’s Chalk toe a
Emmery stand-out track of his, is PAN Kojo Degraft-Johnson here too. thrilling line between
Rising indie star Linn a blind-siding reflection While the artist now singing on Instagram. post-punk and electronic
Koch-Emmery deals in on the concepts of called PAN might not The smooth and softly The Chisel noise, pushing the
heartfelt, soul-baring consumption and the ring too many bells, experimental soul The Chisel have been boundaries of both and
confessionals that all-encompassing there’s a fair chance music the duo make floating around the UK creating a cacophonous
have already attracted power of love, for you’ll be acquainted together is proof of a hardcore scene for a sound. New EP
the attention of Pete better or worse. with her previous guise rare musical chemistry. while now but make Conditions II, out via
Robertson — known as Aristophanes and Lister’s warm, full- their big step up with Nice Swan, is funky in
for both his work with Karin Ann the collabs with Grimes bodied instrumentals new album What a parts, while others fall
The Vaccines and It’s hard to shake the that she enjoyed. Now, are the perfect foil Fucking Nightmare. down a slippery slope
production for the likes sense that Karin Ann is she’s at the start of a to Degraft-Johnson’s Across 16 tracks, they towards discordant
of Beabadoobee, Clairo at the start of something new era with a fresh honeyed vocals. channel hardcore, chaos. The offspring of
and Orla Gartland. special. At the age of just name and tunes to punk, Oi! and beyond the British post-punk
Recent track ‘Ebay 21, she’s scored 11 million match. Released on HONESTY with buckets of melody revolution continue to
Armour’ is a powerful streams and secured Transgressive, her Members of new and righteous anger. thrill and innovate.

28 | Rolling Stone | April/May 2024

The Mix

Q&A

Success story
Vivian Oparah, BAFTA-nominated actress and star of Rye Lane and Dead
Hot, on storytelling, music, and why she wants to play the Joker
By ALASTAIR JAMES

V
ivian Oparah is the very definition of It’s been overwhelming. As an actor, you make What’s your all-time favourite performance ?
a rising star. After making her debut in something, and you immediately detach because Oh, God! Jodie Comer in Killing Eve season one.
2016 in the Doctor Who spinoff Class, you don’t know what’s going to happen to it in Athletic acting, chameleonic — like, she did
Oparah had turns in shows like The the edit. To have made something which seems everything. She was so funny. The dramatic acting,
Rebel and I May Destroy You. Last year, she made to have captured a time in Peckham, which is there was so much whimsy, the accents. How
a memorable splash in the romcom Rye Lane, important to the community that live there, that much she’s in that show, holding it. Obsessed.
before going on to appear in Then You Run and, response in particular has been incredible. To Who else are you excited for people to know
most recently, in the comedy thriller Dead Hot, have made a capsule of that awkward, slightly about? Who’s up and coming?
which is available to stream on Prime Video. Her cringe-worthy, but ultimately heart-warming, One of my friends who I starred in Then You Run
performance as the effervescent Yas in Rye Lane getting-to-know-you stage of love feels lovely. It’s with. Her name is Isidora Fairhurst. I think she’s
earned Oparah a Leading Actress nomination pretty funny because I’m not romantic at all. one of the most incredible actors I’ve ever met in
at the 2024 BAFTA Film Awards, with her name How did it feel to be nominated for Leading my life. Also, an amazing singer.
included alongside actresses such as Emma Stone Actress at the BAFTAs? Do you have any ambitions to step behind
and Margot Robbie. As a member of the BAFTA Absolutely surreal. Fantasia Barrino, Emma the camera?
Breakthrough class of 2023, and as a musician as Stone, Margot Robbie, Sandra Hüller and Carey I do. I’ve been writing a lot. Stories were my first
well as a storyteller, Oparah is definitely about to Mulligan, those women are juggernauts when love. Maybe directing when I get a little bit older.
become a household name. it comes to acting. To be even mentioned in the I’m still a baby.
same sentence as them is insane. You’ve mentioned wanting to play the Joker.
Who gave you the best reaction to that news? Why?
My mum. I told her I’d been nominated alongside I’m obsessed with Heath Ledger’s performance.
Where does your love of storytelling come Barbie. She was like, “But you are Barbie!” That’s But I feel like playing a heightened comic-book
from? my forever cheerleader. I FaceTimed one of my villain who somehow still feels normal, but
My love of storytelling definitely feels innate. I’m best friends who was with my two other best has the weirdest physicality, would be a real
Nigerian, and Nigerians are natural storytellers. friends. They were all crying on the floor in the challenge. I’m often described as ‘the Trickster’,
I watched how storytelling would animate my gym. I wondered what people must have thought like, that’s my archetype. So, I think I could slip
otherwise stoic dad. My mum would tell the most they received a call about. into it really well.
zany, grandiose, Tim Burton-esque stories when I You’re also part of BAFTA Breakthrough 2023. You released a song ‘FOUL’ last year. Do you
was a kid, so I guess I’m mirroring that. How does that feel? have plans for more music as Vivian Forever?
What kinds of stories do you want to tell? Incredible! You get a lot of opportunities and Yes, I’m finding the time to make it. Music’s
It sounds really cliche, but stories with complex moments in your career, but you don’t quite know been more of an anchor for me the past year
characters who we don’t pity, and stories that how to harness them. Having an institution like than something I’m working on career-wise. The
are psychological. But always stories that are fun BAFTA to shepherd me through these changes dream is to write, star in and do the score for a
and innovative. feels super special. I feel really lucky to be part of film. We’ll see how that all pans out.
Do you think you’ll focus on intimate, real, a diverse cohort of talent. And I’m super excited You had plans to study neuroscience, but began
human stories like Rye Lane, or can you to follow in the footsteps of such wonderful talent. acting instead. Do you ever think about what life
imagine stepping into some fantastical world? Who inspires you? would be like if you had gone ahead with that?
I can definitely see myself stepping into more Worldbuilders. Virgil Abloh was a huge I feel like, somehow, I’m doing it. I feel like acting
fantastical worlds like the ones Yorgos Lanthimos inspiration of mine. So was Maison Margiela. is an exploration of the mind in a more creative
creates. They still feel super grounded. I’d step Björk, another incredible worldbuilder. The Paul way. It would have been an exploration of the
into a Star Wars-like universe because I’m a sci- Thomas Andersons of this world. Jordan Peele. mind in a very clinical way.
fi and fantasy geek at heart. But I also enjoy the Tyler, the Creator just did a capsule collection What’s the best career lesson you’ve learnt?
intimacy of human-to-human connection and for Louis Vuitton. His ability to distil his personal You cannot predict anything. You put your heart
grounded, quiet stories. essence into everything he does and down to the into it, and then you leave. Don’t try to control
What do you make of the response to Rye most minute detail is something that I want to be the outcome. And actually, the less you do, the
Lane? able to do. better it gets.

30 | Rolling Stone | April/May 2024

BAFTA/VIVEK VADOLIYA
The Mix

Why this might be Ariana

Grande’s boldest era yet
The pop star is gloriously unpredictable — and it feels like she
wants to play in a historic league with stars like Madonna

A
RIANA GRANDE has built such a mighty pop legacy
over the past decade as one of the most consistently
ROB furniture in a nature-is-healing sex frenzy. Future historians
will pair Positions with Folklore as the yin and yang of lockdown
kicky hitmakers around — but also as one of the
SHEFFIELD culture, two experimental pop classics lost in cabin fever.
weirdest minds in the game. ‘Yes, And?’ is her SOUND AND Positions holds up insanely well. But it’s been a long stretch since
VISION
number one comeback, a disco rage-queen anthem the ‘34+35’ days. “You such a dream come true, true / Make a bitch
that raises expectations for her long-awaited return, Eternal wanna hit snooze, ooh” — those were different times.
Sunshine. It’s a brilliantly nasty manifesto to kick off the new Ariana era. Her snooze era was a surprisingly long break for any pop star these
She’s just hit her thirties, wrapping up her Saturn return, and she’s making days, but especially for Grande, after her bang-bang-bang prolific run of
music after a four-year layoff. But she’s got some nonholistic shit to talk Sweetener, Thank U, Next, and Positions. The faster she worked, the more
about to anyone gossiping about her between albums. “Don’t comment on off-the-dome and eccentric she went, the higher she peaked; her best-loved
my body, do not reply,” Ari sneers. “Your business is yours and mine is mine / moments came when she talked her shit and hit send before anyone had
Why do you care so much whose dick I ride?” time to talk her out of it. But in her years away, her only new music was
Madonna, one of Grande’s idols, is the guiding spirit of ‘Yes, And?’, occasional cameos on other people’s remixes, while filming the upcoming
which rides a ‘Vogue’-style house beat. It’s a clever salute to the queen, who Wicked movies, starring as Glinda. She also made headlines with her
invented this power move of reminding people how controversial you are marriage, divorce and on-set romance with co-star Ethan Slater, which
by complaining how controversial you are. But it’s also a spiritually perfect gets her rage going on ‘Yes, And?’.
shout-out at a pivotal time for Grande. She’s 30, around the age when In case anyone forgot those scandals, it’s a clever move to kick off her
Madonna made her big move into the future with Like a Prayer, the Eternal Sunshine era with a lead single giving a “previously on Ariana” recap.
album that catapulted her into one of the most dizzyingly brilliant thirties She’s always had her own flair for surfing her way through
any pop artist ever had. So for Grande to invoke ‘Vogue’, right from the tabloid headlines — that’s how we got ‘Thank U, Next’,
Madonna’s change-of-decade moment, feels like a bold statement about her where she turned what could have been the pettiest
ambitions — she wants to play in that historic league. Thirtysomething celebrity shade into a genuinely moving pop life-coach
Madonna had it both ways: sophisticated mega-pop depth and disco lesson. But this woman always knows how to embrace
bombast. Why shouldn’t Ariana? controversy, going all the way back to the most iconic
The stakes are high for Eternal Sunshine.. Grande set the tone crisis of her career, her legendary doughnut-licking
by posting a credo for the new year. “I’ve never felt more at the scandal of 2015, when she outraged a nation by getting
mercy of and in acceptance of what life was screaming to teach rowdy in a late-night bakery, tasting the goodies and
me,” she wrote. Life has been screaming so much wisdom at saying, “I hate America.” It was the power move of a
Ariana, and she’s finally ready to share. After four years, true havoc queen.
she’s got a lot to prove. Eternal Sunshine takes its title from the 2004
Grande has always been gloriously unpredictable. When Michel Gondry drama about a heartbroken
she first made her bones as a real-deal star, it was 10 years couple who can only move on by
ago with her 2014 breakout hit, ‘Problem’, and her getting each other’s lives medically erased
album My Everything.. But she came on like a trash- from their brains. It suggests Ariana has got
talking kid playing grown-up. Everything about her some bittersweet memories to purge. She
seemed hyperbolically over the top: her Bardot teams up with longtime collaborators Max
ponytail, her mini-Mariah pipes, her mascara- Martin and Ilya Salmanzadeh, a symbolic
dripping eye rolls, her perpetually bored full- circle moment, since they were on
scowl of teen contempt. Ten years down hand for her coronation with ‘Problem’
the line, she’s proved she’ll try anything for and My Everything a decade ago. Entering
kicks. She does glossy ballads, Euro-sleaze their thirties is often a moment when
dance bangers, hip-hop sex rants, trap pop queens get introspective and decide
KEVIN WINTER/IHEARTMEDIA/GETTY IMAGES

Sound of Music — but it all sounds like her. to make their boldest marks on history
She broke up with Pete Davidson, rushed — Carole King on Tapestry, Janet Jackson
out a quickie called ‘Thank U, Next’, and on The Velvet Rope, Taylor Swift on Lover,
shocked everyone with one of the decade’s and, of course, Madonna going full-blast
most indelible classics. into Damn Right I’m Expressing Myself
Eternal Sunshine is her first new music Thanks for Asking mode. So it’s a huge
since her 2020 banger, Positions, the ultimate moment for Ariana. Over her amazing past
pandemic-era perv-disco concept album about decade, she’s explored pretty much everywhere.
quarantine madness: a couple locked in the house But Eternal Sunshine is where she shows the world
together so long there’s nothing to do but destroy the where she’s ready to go next.

32 | Rolling Stone | April/May 2024

The Mix

TV

When the party (prince) is over

Rufus Sewell on the subtle awkward tension of the original people don’t know that I can. And sound like him and get behind the
complexities of bringing Newsnight interview. so, I said yes. Then I had a few thoughts and gestures, from my
Rufus Sewell plays Andrew, while months to think, ‘What the fuck perspective. It could only ever be
Prince Andrew to life on
Gillian Anderson is BBC journalist have I just said yes to,’ because I sat my perspective.
screen in Scoop, the Emily Maitlis, who challenges him on down to look at the interview again, I obsessed about the interview,
upcoming Netflix drama his dubious connections with child which I remembered watching at and I worked on it and worked on
about his infamous sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell as the time, and realised that though I it. I would physically disguise myself
Newsnight interview with well as Epstein — whom the prince felt I knew how I could inhabit it, it even to work on it on my own, so
Emily Maitlis continued to visit despite Epstein’s wasn’t going to do itself. I had to do I could suspend disbelief about
first conviction. It’s a masterful a lot of work to look like Andrew, myself. I’d dull down my eyebrows
By CLIFF JOANNOU pairing that sees Sewell and Anderson and grease my hair and I’d pad

N
recreate in unnerving detail the myself out, and just walk around in
ine years after interview that would see the prince the shape of it. Slowly, it started
Prince Andrew was step down from Royal duties. to get closer and closer to
photographed in New something that felt right.
York with convicted sex And I did that work for a
offender Jeffrey Epstein, the royal very, very long time.
Anderson
joined Newsnight in 2019 for a ‘car You and Gillian Anderson inhabit as Emily
Then, on the first
crash’ interview of epic proportions. your roles so powerfully. What Maitlis day of filming, sitting
In Scoop, Netflix brings to were your thoughts when you opposite Gillian as
the screen the story behind the were first offered the role? Maitlis, I realised that
interview, with exceptional lead For me, this was a chance to do the she had done her own
performances that mirror the kind of thing that actually maybe version of that. I was

34 | Rolling Stone | April/May 2024

 astonished by how accurately she had a duty to kind of fairly represent we go on as a viewer, because it uncomfortable situation that you
portrayed the other character that him. And that doesn’t mean to try to goes from horror and shock and found yourself speaking about in
I had been subconsciously studying make people like him. That’s quite disgust to almost comical in some the scene?
the whole time, because it was scary, because you don’t want to respects. But it’s all so horrendous, My discomfort has to be different
terrifyingly familiar and similar. And be accused of trying to rehabilitate because of the circumstances. from Andrew’s discomfort. So much
it was the one part that had been someone or show that they’re nice I know, I know. But that’s life. And of his discomfort is about having
missing from my prep — that laser- or show it from their side. Walking one of the things about being able to to disguise the fact that he feels
like focus on me. that line is very, very difficult. But in watch it embodied by other people betrayed and wounded and afraid.
Was there any discussion or the end, you’ve just got to do what makes you able to observe it with a Though I can’t speak with any
preparation with Gillian? you think is truthful. slightly more distanced eye. authority, I believe the fact that he
I like to work with what an actor It’s an interesting journey that As a parent, what was the most feels tremendous guilt about certain
gives me. I’m a big fan of Gillian’s. things but also a tremendous sense
It was just a treat. I mean, she of victimisation.
made it very difficult for Andrew, “I had a duty to fairly represent him One of the things that was most
and therefore easier for me to interesting is how often he was
play the part, because she had the … But in the end, you’ve just got to telling the truth. And a lot of what
uncanniness of what she was doing
to what I had studied. I really, really do what you think is truthful” he’s trying to do is re-explain.
There’s a lot of misdirected truths
felt like I was in the hot seat. And there. So you can say for example,
luckily, I’d done enough work that “I have no memory of someone.”
what that brought out in me was
more Andrew-like.
But no, there wasn’t. I think
very much the idea was to have
that initial meeting, because that’s
what it really was, apart from a brief
consultation that the characters
had before, that was the time they
really met. They didn’t get much of a
gauge on each other until that time.
If we ever did a run-through, we’d
always do it half-energy, because
you don’t want anything special to
happen when it’s not filming.
What were your concerns taking
on the role?
What I want to do as an actor is that
your loyalty is to the truth of the
character. You want to represent
that, warts and all, which is actually
the easy part. The tricky part with
certain characters is trying to give
the non-warts and even the elements
of a character that might be less
unattractive, more charming, equal
light. You’re not there to rehabilitate,
you’re not there to condemn, but
merely to offer up and try to come
up with something that you believe IN THE HOT And that might be true, but not for a
as an interior monologue makes SEAT Sewell good reason.
and Anderson
sense to themselves in that moment. I haven’t made any final
recreate the
And I could see what I thought all of interview judgements about him as a person
those things were, by watching him right down to when I’m doing it. My feelings of
closely. the clothes distaste and horror about things
I know from experience and Andrew and that he may or may not be guilty of
Maitlis were
from hanging out with other wearing and my own personal feelings in the
human beings in my life that it is performance are quite clear. But I’d
possible to mix guilt with feelings rather my performance speak for me.
of victimisation. Anyone who’s ever Have you made peace with the
been in a relationship has had to fact that you’re not going to be
deal with various levels of culpability offered an honour now?
and versions of apology and stuff. [Laughs] I came to peace with that
We’re all capable of it. It seemed to a long time ago. So, I may as well
NETFLIX

me like an extreme case, but then I play Andrew.

April/May 2024 | Rolling Stone | 35

The Mix

MUSIC

Fletcher almost
lost it all
Illness brought her rock-star lifestyle to a halt.
Now, she’s healing in more ways than one
By WAISS AR AMESH

C
ari Fletcher knew was about. She can talk spicy (“I Fletcher, who was born in in Jersey. “We’d go home, have
something was wrong. just had sex with my ex / In a New Asbury Park, New Jersey, and some pasta, and shoot back over to
After finishing a series York apartment / Ooh, I thought it’d raised on Bon Jovi and Bruce the studio to keep creating.”
of shows in the spring be harmless)” and be the topic of Springsteen, moved back home The artist known for singing
of 2023, she felt deeply run down conversation up and down your For for treatment, posting up in her about her rock-star lifestyle and
— and it wasn’t just the usual You Page. Suddenly, she worried it childhood bedroom. A typical heartbreak-numbing libations
aches and pains of life on the might all be over. day for her this past summer now has a different focus and
road. The singer, who performs as Fletcher shared her diagnosis on started with a hot-girl walk by the aura. The day after the Grammys,
Fletcher, went to the doctor and social media and postponed some soccer fields on which she grew Fletcher sits at a booth in a café
learned she had Lyme disease, overseas dates. Marquee letters up playing; maybe a bike ride by behind the Hollywood Hills sipping
a bacterial infection that can came down. Comments sections the inlet; some meditation, some a peppermint tea, manifesting a
cause debilitating fatigue and went quiet. Fletcher became a journalling, and a lot of checking in nomination for herself in the future,
neurological complications. It recluse. “I noticed all the other on how her body was feeling. and reflecting on some of the most
can also result in inflammation things that got really loud in the As she slowly got better, she vulnerable times in her life. In
and damage to the nerves in the time that I got really quiet, and it packed her complicated feelings Search of the Antidote is full of raw
voice box — meaning Fletcher was was the darkness that was in my into an album that comes from emotion, teetering between extreme
faced with the terrifying prospect own mind,” she says. “I had to Cari, the person, as much as confidence and despair. On the
of being left permanently unable sit with ‘Who am I without the Fletcher, the pop star. In Search of album’s scalding, sarcastic opener,
to sing. “There were many, many, applause? Who am I without the the Antidote is an ode to all of the Fletcher wonders if she’s ruining her
many moments over the last year analytics and the numbers?’ It forms of healing Fletcher has gone life by lashing out at everything she
where I was not sure if I was going brought a lot to the surface about through in the past 12 months. “My loves; on the warm, breezy closer,
to return to music,” Fletcher, who self-worth and my beliefs and my mum would cook us spaghetti and she finds a sense of peace. Crisp
has just turned 30, says. gifts and my talents.” meatballs,” she says of being back ballads and alt-pop-punk “bops”
By the time she was diagnosed, (her words) come in between.
Fletcher had established herself The focus is healing, but it’s not
as one of pop’s most versatile all love and light. There’s still a
stars. She can pen a heartbreak “I had to sit with ‘Who am I without healthy dose of mess. On ‘Doing
ballad or craft a raucous dance Better’, Fletcher sings about an
hit. She doesn’t shy away from the the applause? Who am I without ex’s new girlfriend, who was also
controversial or the confessional
the analytics and the numbers?’”
the focus of her 2022 hit ‘Becky’s
— this is an artist who made music So Hot’. The singer kicks off the
videos for an EP titled The S(ex) second verse of the new song with,
Tapes, with the ex-girlfriend the EP “Your girlfriend never thanked me /

36 | Rolling Stone | April/May 2024 PHOTOGRAPHY BY Jessica Lehrman

April/May 2024 | Rolling Stone | 37
The Mix

For making her go viral / Fuck it, I’m “If somebody had to put a label for her Lyme disease and leaning After our conversation at the
her idol.” on me of queerness… but even on a support system that comprises café, Fletcher pays up front, hugs
She wrote the album’s lead that, it’s just… I don’t know. I just family and friends — including me goodbye, and walks out the
single, ‘Eras of Us’, after running am. I just am…” She trails off. Her Miley Cyrus, who Fletcher linked door. Once she’s out of earshot, a
into that same ex (whom she calls tone is mildly exasperated as she up with when the two performed couple of waiters look her up on
“one of my greatest loves”) during looks for the words to describe the sultry renditions of ‘Becky’s So Hot’ Spotify and one plays ‘Becky’s
a stop on Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour energy she feels around those who and ‘Midnight Sky’ on Cyrus’s New So Hot’. In the viral hit, Fletcher
at MetLife Stadium. It was tough to inspire her songs. So, what makes Year’s Eve television special. “Her sings, “She’s the one I should hate /
see someone with whom she had a Fletcher muse? That, the singer heart is so big, and she just gives But I wanna know how she tastes.”
so much history, but she knew a is eager to talk about. “I have a so much presence and attention, It’s a messy girl anthem — the kind
song would almost certainly come lot more muses than people think and listens to you,” Fletcher says of of mess Fletcher continues to
from the experience. (Swift, by the I do. People think that songs are Cyrus. “I feel really lucky to have heal from but hasn’t completely
way, is a fan, having told Fletcher just about one specific person,” she her energy and her presence in shunned just yet.
how much she loved the lyrics of says, with a hint of pride. my life, and also the ways that she These days are quieter for
her 2019 hit ‘Undrunk’.) Fletcher is still getting treatment lifted me up.” Fletcher. She wants to stick around
Fletcher, a champion of sexual as an artist, to play the long game —
fluidity who identifies as part of one that’d be impossible were she
the LGBTQ+ community, winces at living the life she was in 2022. “My
the idea of labelling her sexuality.
“I love women, and women are
“My life used to be signing boobs life used to be signing boobs and
tequila shots,” Fletcher had said as
beautiful, and they’ve been my
muses,” she says. “But I have
and tequila shots. I’m still signing she finished her tea. Still, the chaos
isn’t gone. Sure, she drinks less and
found a lot more freedom in the tits. That’s not changing” listens to her body more, but …
expansion of releasing the idea that “I’m still signing tits. That’s not
I have to be something all the time. changing.”

38 | Rolling Stone | April/May 2024

The Mix

TRAVEL

Rock
City
Follow in the footsteps
of rock royalty with a
stay in iconic West
Hollywood, LA

O
ne of the first
ACADEMY MUSEUM OF MOTION PICTURES
things you’ll notice
Just 20 minutes from Sunset Boulevard, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures boasts
upon entering West all the big-screen history and artefacts that you’d reasonably expect from the institution
Hollywood’s legendary that puts on the Oscars every single year. We’d be here all day if we were to list every single
Sunset Marquis hotel is the huge exhibit, but we also don’t want to spoil the surprises that lie within. However, we will say
image of Lou Reed that looms large that The Godfather exhibit — complete with the horse’s head prop from that harrowing
over the pool. On the chilly February scene — is truly excellent. As is the array of costumes that covers everything from Mamma
Mia! to Midsomer. Oh, and for an extra $10, wannabe acting greats can live out their award-
evening when I arrive, it means
winning dreams in the interactive Oscars experience. An engaging and essential visit for
that the iconic cover shot of Reed’s movie buffs and casual film lovers alike.
Transformer is silently looking down
From $25, book at academymuseum.org
on any guests that have dared to take
a dip in the brisk waters.
It’s a fittingly imposing motif for
the luxury hotel, which boasts a
JON D’AMICO’S ROCK ’N
musical history unlike no other in WALK SUNSET STRIP TOUR
West Hollywood. The likes of Joe To put it simply: what former stage
Strummer, Debbie Harry and Slash manager Jon D’Amico doesn’t
have all stayed there, and their know about the Sunset Strip isn’t
portraits adorn the walls. worth knowing. And where he
Part of its legacy lies in its doesn’t go, isn’t worth going.
D’Amico — the former stage
basement: this is the home of
manager for the likes of Guns N’
Nightbird Studios, where Rihanna Roses and Stone Temple Pilots
recorded ‘Stay’ back in 2012. No Jon D’Amico — is a brilliant guide to the rich
wonder the studios boast more than (right) with and varied history of the area.
50 Grammy Award-winning albums Rolling Stone’s We’re loath to reveal too many
to their name. Nick Reilly details, but just know that you’ll
see the restaurant where Quentin
Located just off the Sunset Strip,
Tarantino wrote large sections of
it’s the perfect place for music lovers Pulp Fiction, plus you might even
to stay while taking in a district that stop for a drink at The Rainbow,
might just be America’s true home of where late Motörhead icon Lemmy
hard rock. propped up the bar most days.
The Whisky A Go-Go, located mere Similarly, D’Amico will take you
to a wide array of hidden gems
minutes from the hotel, became the
that only locals would ever be
epicentre of the genre in the 80s and able to tell you about, including
provided a key place for the likes the charming Mystery Pier Books,
of Mötley Crüe and Guns N’ Roses where deep-pocketed punters can
to cut their teeth. A stone’s throw pick up first editions of Dickens
away from there, the legendary and Chandler, to name but two.
This whistle-stop tour is, in our
Troubadour is where a bespectacled
opinion, the best way to take in
lad from Pinner called Elton John the area’s vast and rich history
played his first-ever US show. The lavish in one hugely entertaining and
GETTY IMAGES

So, come with us, as we take a look rooms at informative fell swoop.
at the must-visits and must-dos for the Sunset
From $59, book at rocknwalktours.
Marquis hotel
music lovers in West Hollywood. com

40 | Rolling Stone | April/May 2024

 CAVATINA RESTAURANT, SUNSET MARQUIS
ROXY50 EXHIBIT AT If you’re staying at the Sunset Marquis, then the Cavatina
GRAMMY MUSEUM is a must-visit. Set in the hotel’s idyllic outside area (but
totally weatherproof too), this contemporary space is
As The Roxy hits 50, this
among the best spots to kick back and enjoy the West
excellent exhibition is
Hollywood highlife. Under the stewardship of chef
the perfect tribute to
Luis Morales, the Cavatina offers a mixture of high-end
Lou Adler’s legendary
dishes and more casual offerings to suit every mood and
venue. The Sunset
appetite. Their Alta Loma Club Sandwich is a satisfying
Strip landmark is best
quick lunch bite, while dinner is defined by the luscious
known as the place that
grilled blue prawns. If you’re feeling really decadent, enjoy
introduced America to
a meal and cocktails by one of the hotel’s heated pools.
the intoxicating world
of the Rocky Horror
Show, before hosting
legendary gigs from
the likes of Bob Marley,
Adele and Guns N’
Roses. On until June,
this exhibition offers
a comprehensive
story of the venue’s
storied 50-year legacy,
original memorabilia
and 60 photographs of
the shows that really
defined the legend of
The Roxy.
From $18, book at
grammymuseum.org

Bob Marley performing MEL’S DRIVE-IN

at The Roxy Theatre in
Located just minutes from
November 1979
the Sunset Marquis, this is
an essential spot for anyone
THE WHISKY A GO GO wishing to soak up a piece of
quintessential US diner culture.
Since opening in 1964, the Whisky a Go Go has developed
Simply rock up, choose your
into the kind of place in music lore that any venue owner
own booth and chow down
would strive for. From The Byrds to Buffalo Springfield, from
on one of the many burgers,
AC/DC to Mötley Crüe, the Whisky is the kind of club where
sandwiches, soups, salads and
you’re wishing that the walls could speak and tell the secrets
sliders that are on offer. The
of all the iconic acts who have performed there.
tableside jukeboxes are a cute
These days, you can watch acts who are hoping to follow
touch too, allowing diners to
in the footsteps of those greats and carve their own place
part with a quarter in order to
in Whisky history. We saw a bill of local and national rock
choose the tunes that will blare
talent including LA rockers Stonebreed and HXLA. With
out across the restaurant.
shows on nearly every night that start at under $20, it’s
There is real history here too:
the perfect way to contextualise and soak up the Whisky’s
it was previously known as Ben
legendary history.
Frank’s, and the likes of Bob
From $20, book at ticketmaster.com Dylan, Andy Warhol and Frank
Zappa all stopped here for late-
night eats.
The restaurant’s youthful
vibe also meant that TV
executives put out a call for
“spirited Ben Frank’s types”
when it came to casting The
Monkees back in 1965.

THE COMEDY STORE

If you’re looking for a laugh, this
legendary stand-up spot has got you
sorted. This is where you can catch
side-splitting sets from the comedy
stars of tomorrow, as well as surprise
unannounced sets from comedy giants.
On the night we attended, SNL and
Ghostbusters star Leslie Jones (pictured
right) rocked up for an excellent hour-
long set. Who knows who might just
show up when you’re there?
From $20, book at thecomedystore.com
 UK

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The quiet passion

“I don’t feel
like I need a
future drawn
out for me”
 From Kick-Ass to Kraven the Hunter
via his next big role opposite Ryan
Gosling in The Fall Guy, Aaron Taylor-
Johnson is Britain’s next big film star
By Christina Newland
Photography by Kosmas Pavlos
Creative and styling by Joseph Kocharian

45
 PREVIOUS SPREAD

AARON WEARS COAT BY

MAISON VALENTINO,
SHIRT BY TOM FORD,
TROUSERS BY LANVIN,
BOOTS BY CHRISTIAN
LOUBOUTIN

THIS PAGE

AARON WEARS COAT

BY HOMME PLISSÉ
ISSEY MIYAKE, TANK
TOP BY TOM FORD
AT MR PORTER,
TROUSERS BY LANVIN,
EARRINGS AND RINGS
(THROUGHOUT)
AARON’S OWN

46 / rolling stone / APril/M AY 2024

 Aaron Taylor-Johnson

V
ery much by accident, Aaron Taylor-Johnson — the swaggering
33-year-old star of action movies like Bullet Train and the
bookies’ favourite to be the next 007 — currently has access
to my unlocked iPhone. I doubt he’s thinking about it, but
I certainly am: a movie star is sitting across from me at a
restaurant, thumbing idly through my Notes app. I was showing
him something relevant to our interview, but one backwards
swipe could mean access to anything from my grocery lists
to, well… God knows what. And here I was thinking it was the
talent who was supposed to feel exposed at an interview.
Turns out it’s a two-way street, as he hands my phone back to me. “What you gotta
realise,” he’s saying to me, “is that what most people were doing in their twenties, I was
doing when I was 13.” We’re discussing being judged about doing things at certain ages.
You might be thinking of a certain tabloid furore over his meeting and falling in love
with his wife of over 10 years, Sam Taylor-Johnson, when she directed him in her John
Lennon biopic Nowhere Boy. With more than two decades between them, the public
derision over their marriage was widespread and cruel. “You’re doing something too
quickly for someone else? I don’t understand that. What speed are you supposed to
enjoy life at? It’s bizarre to me,” he says.
We’re perched in a quiet booth at a hip London private members’ club. At first glance,
with his prominent signet ring and black leather cowboy boots, Taylor-Johnson seems
every ounce the slickly charismatic celebrity. He’s exactly the kind you’d imagine as the
face of an Armani fragrance and the lead of a forthcoming Marvel flick. But we’re talking
about marriage, separation, parenting and step-parenting with the solemn intensity of
two lame lifestyle podcasters. (“Kids see what you’re doing before they hear what you’re
saying. Actions speak louder than words,” he’s saying to me, while I nod sagely.) That
kind of thing has a certain way of cutting through the pretence.
Taylor-Johnson has moved along at an accelerated pace for much of his life — and his
career. He married and had children young; but he has also been acting since he was six.
His first film was when he was 10 (Shanghai Knights, with Jackie Chan). And he left school
altogether at the tender age of 15. He learned not through drama school, but by being on
film sets (“You work with good and bad actors, divas and non-divas. You learn how not
to behave,” he says.) He also learned by auditioning endlessly, on after-school trips to
London with his mum from his suburban hometown of High Wycombe.
“It might never last. I felt so lucky to be able to do these things. But it wasn’t easy.
Sometimes I’d audition twice a day five days a week, up and down London. I’d come
out of school; my mum would take me to Amersham — the end of the Metropolitan line.
We’d go into London, have a Maccy D, and go have an audition. And I didn’t have pushy
parents. They weren’t showbiz parents. My dad was a civil engineer, and my mum did
odd jobs. She got to chaperone me if I got a job. We were a unit.”

APRIL/M AY 2024 / RoLLIng stone / 47

Aaron Taylor-Johnson

AARON WEARS COAT,

He soon began to resent his teachers SLEEVELESS JACKET,
TOP, TROUSERS AND
speaking to him like a child while the people SHOES BY BOTTEGA

in the film industry spoke to him like a VENETA

professional. School grew less interesting.

That’s no surprise, seeing as he seems to be
a whirlwind of constant energy in person;
you can’t really imagine him patiently sitting
behind a desk. “Sometimes doing those jobs
kept me out of trouble at the right time. In the
suburbs of London, there’s not much to do but
piss around and be naughty. And that was fun,
but acting was a saving grace,” he says.

F
ast-forward to 2024, and Taylor-
Johnson has never stopped moving
at speed. He keeps busy at his farm
in Somerset with Sam, with whom
he shares “four gorgeous daughters”, as he
dotingly refers to them. The eldest are Sam’s
from a previous marriage, aged 27 and 17,
and then two tweens. And that’s hardly the
only thing.
Taylor-Johnson has recently wrapped
shooting in Prague for Robert Eggers’ latest
— a reimagining of F.W Murnau’s silent horror
classic Nosferatu, and in May will begin
shooting Fuze, a new heist thriller from Hell
or High Water director David Mackenzie.
Sandwiched in between have been more
bombastic, mainstream projects: next up,
he’s playing the right side of hammy with a
supporting role in David Leitch’s lovable new
action flick The Fall Guy, wherein Taylor-
Johnson plays an egotistical A-lister with Ryan
Gosling as his stuntman. The film is a riot of
huge action sequences, very much Barbie’s
Ken amped to the nth degree. “David asked
me about two weeks before production to
do a cameo, and we expanded the role from
there. It’s a real love letter to the stunt crew,”
he muses.
Then, perhaps more pressingly, the actor
is also the lead in the next major Marvel film
from Sony. A dark origin story called Kraven
the Hunter, it’s based on a Spider-Man villain
but belongs to its own spin-off storyline.
Taylor-Johnson plays a megalomaniacal trophy
hunter who kills big game for pleasure.
“I think there was something unique about
this character, and something grounded.
We’ve all had enough of seeing certain studio
films, a certain kind of pop culture… where
they’re churning out stuff that dilutes wanting
to go to the cinema. I wouldn’t have signed
onto it if I felt there wasn’t something to really
bring to life with this character.”
The film’s been slapped with an R rating
in the States. An anecdote Taylor-Johnson
tells me indicates that the source material
is suitably gruesome. “I’m not a comic-

48 / rolling stone / APril/M AY 2024

 “
It’s the best
when you lose
all inhibitions.
It’s all about
chasing that
feeling. There’s
nothing so
exhilarating

”
APRIL/M AY 2024 / RoLLIng stone / 49
50 // rroolllli inngg s st to o
nne e/ A
/ PArUi g
l /UMs AtY/ s2e0P2 t
4eMBer 2022
 Aaron Taylor-Johnson

book reader, but there’s one called Kraven’s real searching ambition in his voice. “It’s the
Last Hunt…” he says, and then proceeds to best when you sometimes lose all inhibitions
enthusiastically recount the morbid plot, completely, and you feel like you’re dangling
wherein his character conquers Spidey and there, and the director has sort of got one
then commits suicide simply out of spite. “You finger on the back of your shirt, so you don’t
just think, ‘What the fuck have I just read?’ fall,” he says. “It’s all about chasing that feeling.
That’s the kind of character I’m playing. But There’s nothing so exhilarating as that.”
then, a lot of the people who grew up with Or maybe nothing nearly as exhilarating,
Marvel are old enough now to watch an R-rated after all the literal handstands and impressive
movie,” he points out. flips Taylor-Johnson delivers during his
“Taking on a Sony / Marvel movie is a Rolling Stone UK cover shoot. It should be
different challenge altogether. There’s the noted, none of the ensuing acrobatics were
story, the character, the role; that’s one thing. expected; the actor simply arrived on set,
But then you also step into a world where enthused, and began to display his dance
you’re dealing with a studio and a franchise training with such jaw-dropping gusto that
— or possible franchises, though let’s not get the crew were left gasping at his unprompted
ahead of ourselves. So, they’re rolling the dice agility. It’s a perfect complement to his
on me, in a sense, which is a lovely thing,” he upcoming role in The Fall Guy, a film very
says. “But you’ve got to appease the studio, much in praise of the unsung hero of the
please the audience and do what’s dignified movie industry: the stunt double. (Although,
for you as an actor. I find all of that super it’s clear Taylor-Johnson might prefer to throw
challenging.” his own punches. Or backflips.)
One key factor, he tells me, is to lead with It seems to be almost perfectly in parallel
kindness on a production so big: entitlement

“Taking on a Sony/Marvel movie is a

drives him nuts. Working as the leading man
on a juggernaut of this size, people look to

different challenge altogether … You’ve

you to set the tone. Some actors come in and
behave nicely to the cast and crew for a week

got to appease the studio, please the

before the facade crumbles and they act “like
dickheads” again, as he puts it. It sours the

audience and do what’s dignified for

atmosphere on set pretty fast.
But this one is directed by J.C. Chandor (late

you as an actor”
of All Is Lost and A Most Violent Year), so maybe
there’s some chance that it might be a bit more
of a bone-crunching statement on violent
masculinity than your average MCU fare.

S
peaking of violent masculinity, to what marks his screen presence: a sense
those Bond rumours are impossible of vitality and physical grace. Whether he’s
not to ask about, but I’m greeted pelting through a speeding train fighting Brad
with a predictable poker face. Pitt or tearing through African savannah with
“I can only really talk about the things I’m a knife in the trailer for Kraven the Hunter,
going to show and tell,” he says. “So, The Fall Taylor-Johnson has proved himself to be an
Guy, Nosferatu, Kraven the Hunter. I’m here intensely physical performer, one for whom
to promote those.” When I say it must be the transformation into a character is innately
flattering to be associated with 007, he stares linked to the physicality of the role. “I grew
at me in silence. I add that I know he couldn’t up dancing; I work with movement coaches,”
possibly spill the beans to a journalist in this he says.
context; Barbara Broccoli is one formidable Athleticism is pivotal to the way Taylor-
OPPOSITE, CLOCKWISE
woman. More silence, although it is wry rather Johnson seems to work. Bulked up though he FROM TOP LEFT

than severe. I laugh nervously. He asks me was for Kraven the Hunter, it’s the speed and (AND BELOW RIGHT)
AARON WEARS LEATHER
how my pasta is. dexterity of the dancer that seems to suit him JACKET, VINTAGE
HELMUT LANG FROM
“I don’t feel like I need to have a future best. He studied gymnastics and dance from a NORDIC POETRY,
TOP BY NANUSHKA,
drawn out for me. I feel like: whatever’s drawn young age and was one of the very few boys in MOTORCYCLE TROUSERS
BY BELSTAFF, NECKLACE
out for me, I can fuckin’ do better,” Taylor- a dance school full of girls. He is a dedicated BY PAWNSHOP,
BRACELET BY GOOSSENS
Johnson tells me as we round out the evening lover of tap. (“Where’s our musical?” I ask PARIS

with a cup of tea. We’re discussing the idea him. “Please someone write me a musical. AARON WEARS SHIRT BY
TOM FORD, TROUSERS BY
of mapping out a career plan, but his attitude I’d do it!” he replies without pause, before LANVIN

makes me feel like I’ve just been jolted into briefly praising Singin’ in the Rain star Donald AARON WEARS TANK
TOP BY CALVIN KLEIN,
action by a motivational speaker. There’s a O’Connor.) Even when we’re not talking about TROUSERS BY BOSS

APRIL/M AY 2024 / RoLLIng stone / 51

AARON WEARS TANK
TOP BY TOM FORD AT
MR PORTER, TROUSERS
BY LANVIN, HOLDING
BLAZER BY CELINE
HOMME BY HEDI
SLIMANE
 It’s your job
to protect the
purest, most
“
innocent thing
that’s come
into the world.
It’s your duty
to be their role
model

”
APRIL/M AY 2024 / ROLLING STONE / 53
 “We became
really tight
and reliant on
each other, in a
healthy, creative
way. That’s all
because of
Robert Eggers”

people who are on that level of genius in their

craft, there’s an energy with that that you ride
on,” he enthuses.
Often, Eggers shot the film with only one
set-up per day, and with a dolly moving 360
degrees around a room during a scene — a bit
more like filmed theatre than contemporary
cinema. It meant that Taylor-Johnson and
the rest of the cast had to aim for perfection.
“It’s an ensemble piece — Willem Dafoe, Nick
Hoult, Emma Corrin — and we became super
tight,’ Taylor-Johnson says. “If you mess up
your line or your beat, you went back to the
beginning again. So, you felt very responsible
for not messing up someone else. You could
be 10 minutes into a scene and thinking, ‘Oh
my God, Willem is absolutely crushing it, if I
mess my bit up, that’s so unfair for them.’ So,
we became really tight and reliant on each
other, in a healthy, creative way. And you don’t
dance, as such, Taylor-Johnson organically of muscle. I ate so much fucking food. I was so experience that often in movies. And that’s all
connects actors he likes by the way they move. big,” he says. because of Robert Eggers, and how meticulous
This feels telling about his own approach. I ask if he sees any kind of undue pressure his approach is.”
“Alain Delon, I’ve been watching a lot of his on actors to achieve a certain bulked-up (read: Taylor-Johnson expresses admiration
films,” Taylor-Johnson tells me. “I like the way unrealistic) body type, in the way that women for actors like Christian Bale and Michael
he moved. His elegance, and his stillness.” might have historically been expected to trim Fassbender, too, both of whom have used their
That sense of transformative athleticism was down to extremes. “I don’t feel that pressure, body weight and physical transformation to
never more present than in his preparations no,” he says. “I like shapeshifting, but also, I hone their craft. He sometimes wishes he’d
for Kraven the Hunter. Training to become a wanted to try and do other roles. When I went gone to RADA or similar; he’s appreciative of
supervillain is serious business, particularly to work with Robert Eggers, it was set in the the dedication of performers that studied the
when the comic-book depictions of the Victorian era. I couldn’t look that wide. So, I Method, for instance. “I could always watch
character — as Taylor-Johnson points out — had to really slim down. And he wanted us to any Al Pacino 70s movie — Serpico, Dog Day
are so outlandishly jacked. In other words, he look quite gaunt in the face.” Compared to the Afternoon — these beautiful, well-constructed
needed to both bulk up and be agile enough likes of Matthew Vaughn, Robert Eggers was a movies. How many films are like that now?
to move like a stealthy predator. “I wanted to significant change of pace. “Robert Eggers is Or something about real people, like Blue
approach it like an actor, and I’m not someone such a cinephile, and such an encyclopaedia Valentine, that’ll rip your fucking heart out.
who’s just juicing up and going to the gym. I of film. I didn’t care how big the role [in But something with texture and vibe and
don’t necessarily want this to be my brand, Nosferatu] was, or whatever — I just wanted to earthiness, it’s tough to find,” he says.
doing one action movie after another. But I be a part of his vision, and the boundaries he’s We talk filmmakers for a while and he shares
trained to the point where I was 200 pounds pushing in cinema. And when you work with his enthusiastic appreciation for Christopher

54 / rolling stone / APril/M AY 2024

OPPOSITE

AARON WEARS TOP,

VINTAGE CHRISTIAN
DIOR FROM NORDIC
POETRY,,TROUSERS BY
HERMÈS

THIS PAGE

AARON WEARS COAT,,

SHIRT AND TROUSERS
BY LOUIS VUITTON,,
BOOTS BY ANGRY ITCH
FROM ROKIT
 Aaron Taylor-Johnson

Nolan, who he worked with in a supporting want a jobbing career,” he says. He’s conscious
part in Tenet. While pondering directors I that he has better things to do, it seems.
could see him well matched with, I think of On reflection, his generous manner now
French arthouse legend Claire Denis. There’s falls into place. On the first day I meet Taylor-
something about the actor’s combination of Johnson, we wend our way through Portobello
romance and grit — combined with his tabloid- Market, chatting about the perils of social media
publicised personal life — that makes me think and his family’s menagerie of farm animals in
of her characters. Turns out that Denis felt Somerset (“It’s like Noah’s Ark,” he says of their
the same way; the two had a meeting for an selection of pigs, chickens, dogs, and cows),
undisclosed project back in 2020. “She had before landing at a small establishment serving
something she was going to do, but I don’t up fresh Italian stew with bread and Parmesan.
know if she’s moved on from it now. We had a Taylor-Johnson is greeted in familiar terms by
great meeting though. She’s very cool,” Taylor- the proprietor and gets us two warm bowls of
Johnson offers. old-fashioned comfort food for lunch, refusing
If there’s one filmmaker you simply can’t to let me pay. The more you get to know Aaron
keep Taylor-Johnson from getting excited Taylor-Johnson, the more it makes sense that
about, it is, understandably, his wife. ‘Sam this is a man with four daughters and a farm
is actually a great filmmaker and a wonderful full of animals to look after.
storyteller. People will think there’s sort All of this to say, there is a surprisingly
of a bias to me saying it, but I think when gentle energy that emanates from the actor. It’s
they see Back to Black [her upcoming Amy there in his alarm about me possibly getting
Winehouse biopic], everyone’s going to lost, or waiting too long for him, or being
realise how fantastic a filmmaker she is,” cold. It’s in his complete sincerity as he talks
he says emphatically. Of course, he himself

“People see and perceive this thing

has experience being directed by Sam. But
he points out that it’s difficult to balance

around my career, and that’s OK, but

their collaborations with the sense that any
perceived or actual criticism of them — as

I’m just trying to juggle my family and

with their film together from 2019, A Million
Little Pieces — hurts more keenly. ‘There’s a

my work. I’m doing normal life … Career

protectiveness that I feel; I think it’s really
difficult. There’s also part of me that feels like

doesn’t necessarily take a back seat”

if something didn’t work, I’m the one that’s
responsible,” he says.
Similarly, he’s cautious about bringing any
GROOMING BY LUCY HALPERIN USING ARMANI BEAUTY; POST-PRODUCTION: DIENACHBARIN; FASHION ASSISTANT:

of his toxic male characters back into the

AARON PANDHER; FIRST PHOTOGRAPHY ASSISTANT: LUKE JOHNSON; SECOND PHOTOGRAPHY ASSISTANT: IVYC

family home. “I tend to soak up and absorb

the atmosphere. And it’s important for me about his daughters being born, saying, “You
to get rid of that and shed that skin when I realise it’s your job to protect the purest, most
come home to cuddle my kids at night. When innocent thing that’s come into the world. And
I did Nocturnal Animals, I lived out in fucking it’s your duty to be their role model. You are
Mojave Desert and was in a motel for the entire going to be reflected in their choices later on in
time to do that job. There was no way on earth life, from who their partners are to how they
I was bringing that back into my house.” carry themselves in the world.” OPPOSITE, CLOCKWISE
We return to lifestyle podcaster mode. Taylor-Johnson has had a certain knack for AARON WEARS LEATHER

“People see and perceive this thing around playing foul-mouthed assassins and charming JACKET, VINTAGE
HELMUT LANG FROM
my career, and that’s OK,” he says. “But I’m douchebags of all kinds, from Fall Guy’s NORDIC POETRY, TOP BY
NANUSHKA, NECKLACE
just trying to juggle my family and my work. outrageous movie star egotism all the way back BY PAWNSHOP,
BRACELET BY GOOSSENS
I’m doing normal life; dentist appointments,” to the petulant quipping of Kick-Ass. He brings PARIS, ROYAL OAK
OFFSHORE SELFWINDING
he tells me. “Career doesn’t necessarily take bouncy, roguish energy and a helping of Byronic CHRONOGRAPH, 42MM
BY AUDEMARS PIGUET
a back seat, but it takes a different thought sexiness to any anti-hero he turns his hand to. AARON WEARS JACKET
behind the choices that you make. But you And yet back here on earth, there’s much less of BY EMPORIO ARMANI,
TANK TOP BY CALVIN
also discover characters you’re drawn to all that big Hollywood talk, and much more chat KLEIN, TROUSERS
BY BOSS, SHOES BY
because of that, you’re not just some 20-year- about taking his girls on university visits. CHRISTIAN LOUBOUTIN

old anymore. You unlock some secret thing,” While we eagerly anticipate Taylor- AARON WEARS COAT BY
HOMME PLISSÉ ISSEY
he explains. Equally, the reason he hasn’t Johnson’s year ahead, it’s easy to wonder MIYAKE, TANK TOP
BY TOM FORD AT MR
taken on a television limited series — in spite what’s next for Hollywood’s most grounded PORTER, TROUSERS BY
LANVIN
of good opportunities to do so, he hints — has new leading man. So, come on. Someone write AARON WEARS LEATHER
been the extended amount of time that they the man a musical, or he’ll have to go and be BLAZER BY TOM FORD,
SHIRT BY TOM FORD,
would take him away from the family. “I don’t James Bond. TROUSERS BY LANVIN

APRIL/M AY 2024 / RoLLIng stone / 57

Rolling Stone UK selects the best of
music’s new voices — 25 artists who
are set to make 2024 their year

future
25
rachel chinouriri
“I WANT TO have a legacy that is set in stone in the future, and I know what I want to represent,” Rachel Chinouriri
tells Rolling Stone UK over coffee in an east London café on an uncharacteristically balmy morning in early February.
“What I want is to inspire the other 13-year-old Black girls who are confused about their identity but love rock music.
I want them to be like, ‘Oh God, it’s possible. It actually exists.’ In 10 years’ time, I’m hoping to look back knowing
that my album has been really influential in helping move stepping stones for Black artists.”
It’s the bold manifesto of an artist who already knows what they want to
be, and with extremely good reason. When Chinouriri was a teenager, the
Rachel Chinouriri reflects on her
struggle to overcome stereotypes Londoner had two musical idols: VV Brown and Noisettes singer Shingai
and establish herself as a Black Shoniwa, both Black British women who were blazing their own trails within
indie artist, as well as the UK indie music.
58

heartbreak that informs her But when Chinouriri set out on her own path, she was continuously
forthcoming debut album mislabelled as an R&B and soul artist — even though a single listen of her
GUTTER PHOTO CREDIT

breakout track ‘So My Darling’ is evidence that this couldn’t be further from
BY NICK REILLY
PHOTOGRAPHY the truth.
BY JACK ALEXANDER By 2022, Chinouriri had had enough. “My music is not R&B. My music is not
 “i’ve been
doing music
properly
since I was 18,
so the fact I’m
having my
debut album
all these years
later is mad”

soul. My music is not alternative R&B. My music

is not neo soul. My music is not jazz. Black artists
doing indie is not confusing. You see my colour
before you hear my music,” she powerfully wrote
on Instagram.
She adds to Rolling Stone UK, “I remember
people putting Black squares on their Instagram
when George Floyd’s death happened, and they
said they wanted to listen, so I thought, ‘It’s
time for me to speak up about it.’ Now, it’s really
worked out for me.”
Her debut album, the upcoming What a
Devastating Turn of Events, is a triumph that’s
defined by alt-rock guitars, softer confessional
moments, and the overriding sense that
Chinouriri could be a voice to define indie music
for the next decade.
And then there’s the small matter of friends
in high places. At a recent Las Vegas residency
show, Adele told her fans: “There’s a new artist,
she’s British, her name is Rachel [Chinouriri]
and she does, like, indie music. She’s absolutely
amazing.” Then Adele added that she is planning
to attend Chinouriri’s Los Angeles show this
spring. “I’m going to go on my own,” she said.
“That’s what I’m gonna do.” that the overriding sound of the album is shaped play Eminem, Destiny’s Child. I loved that stuff,
Chinouriri has also forged a firm friendship by an era that long predates that site arriving on but I’ve got three older sisters and one older
with A-lister Florence Pugh, who recently starred the scene. “There’s a real noughties flavour to brother, so they’d just say, ‘Shut up, Rachel!’
in the music video for ‘Never Need Me’. the album, and it’s been interesting because that And I’d go and do my own thing.”
It’s for these reasons we’re convinced allows it to become nostalgic,” she says. But one artist that her parents did approve of,
she might just be the future of music, even if “It’s about the idea of missing home, and that however, was Shingai Shoniwa of the Noisettes.
Chinouriri’s arrival has been, in her own words, for me comes from the nostalgia of turning on “They’d look at her and go: ‘Yes! A Zimbabwean
a “long time coming”. “I’ve been doing music the radio and hearing artists like Arctic Monkeys girl doing well, we can let this one slide!’”
properly since I was 18, so the fact that I’m having for the first time. It’s not necessarily indie, but I She also points to the “unapologetic” and
my debut album all these years later is kind of remember hearing MIA’s ‘Paper Planes’ too, and “tough” spirit of Skunk Anansie singer Skin in
mad, but I’ve been on such a massive personal it’s the first time I can recall my brain absorbing helping her to navigate the choppy waters of the
and career journey,” she says. music. That’s a thing I miss in a way.” music industry. “Seeing how unapologetic she
“I’ve been trying to navigate the industry, Home, for Chinouriri, is Croydon, south was in herself, knowing her art and not wanting
and I feel like I’ve hit a point of knowing how to London, where the singer was raised by to take shit from anyone, that was just fantastic.”
navigate it in the healthiest way possible because Zimbabwean parents. Her strict religious Throughout our chat, you can’t help but
it can get really quite bad. But I’ve managed to upbringing, she admits, resulted in a situation sense that Chinouriri has developed the thick
navigate what I want for my career beyond a where it wasn’t always that easy to listen to the skin and pure artistry of those musicians. This
TikTok trend too.” music that has now shaped her career. has been largely honed, no doubt, from dealing
Even if TikTok may have helped Chinouriri’s “My parents wouldn’t let me play non- with the aforementioned problems with record
sound find an early audience through viral hits Christian music, and when they’d leave, my labels and casual listeners refusing to accept
like the heartbreaking ‘So My Darling’, she admits siblings would put on Channel U and MTV and the artist that Chinouriri actually is.

61
 “From the start, my manager, who is a white consciously make that decision, and of course I try and buy a rope, and I don’t know what it was
man, told me that it would be a struggle to get love soul, R&B and all the music I grew up with. that day, but my best friend texted me after not
the message across, and I didn’t think it would be But even by putting one soulful song in there, speaking to her for about two weeks. She just
that big of a deal. But within two years, I did feel the entire campaign could potentially go wrong said, ‘I’m thinking about you,’ and I just broke
like I was trying to swim against the stream, and because everyone focuses on that one thing ’cos down in B&Q. I got an Uber to her house and just
it did get me down.” it’s easier to market a Black woman in soul or R&B broke down.”
She adds, “I’m friends with so many white than it ever is with indie.” Now, Chinouriri says she’s in a much better
female artists in the industry, and they already There is remarkable candour on the record place altogether. “I’ve been given loads of advice,
have a tough time. We’ll talk about the same too. The title track, for instance, is inspired by and the team that helped me was incredible. But
struggles, but I would talk about my added ones, the story of a cousin who took her own life. that song was the first time I’d ever revealed to
and it became a hard thing to swallow, to realise Chinouriri says she too has come close to a my family that I had done that.”
mine were simply because of my race.” suicide attempt. She adds, “It’s not directly my story, that song,
Still, change is coming, she assures me, and “She took her own life after going through but it’s a story which I know I have gone through,
playlist curators at Spotify and Apple have been a really tough situation where she basically and many women have walked it too.”
among those ringing the necessary changes to loved really hard and faced an awful end to a It’s these life experiences that have informed
get Chinouriri where she needs to be. “We’re relationship. I hadn’t met her, but I’d heard so the shape of the record, Chinouriri explains. It
changing the narrative, but in turn it’s cost me much about her, and I learned it was almost makes a buoyant start through songs such as ‘The
a lot of time and a potentially more successful a complete copy and paste of what I’d gone Hills’ — drenched in euphoric alt-rock guitars
career because we’re having to fix a bunch of through with one of my previous partners,” she rooted in the late 90s — before a sombre flip takes
stuff, and I’m glad it’s changing, but it is difficult.” reflects, before pausing. hold around the midway point. It means that
It has also given her fuel, she explains, to turn “Thank God, I didn’t take that route. But I’d the title track hits with an added punch when it
up the guitars on her debut album. “I’ve had to written suicide letters, I’d gone to the shop to arrives eight songs into the album.
“It’s a weird thing,” she explains. “Life can be
just going along and then something flips and
everything changes, whether that’s life, death,
trauma, or even finding out you’re pregnant.
Your life can completely flip unexpectedly. I
wanted to flip it and show that somehow we’re
all cruising along with these things.”
It’s no wonder that the universally relatable
message of heartbreak and hardship is already
finding a captive audience at sell-out shows too.
As this interview goes to press, Chinouriri will
play a sell-out show at London’s Koko before US
dates — including that potential meeting with
Adele — beckon.
“My team told me: ‘You’ve done four sold-out,
250-capacity venues. You can’t keep doing small
venues,’ and I said, ‘Yes! Yes, I can!’ But they
suggested Koko, and when it did sell out, I was
actually incredibly shocked. I’m excited to show
what I can do as a performer though.”
But if the sadness has got her this far, don’t
expect more of the same on album two.
Chinouriri is in a place that doesn’t necessarily
lend itself to the same circumstances.
“When I was younger, I was so, like,
traumatised and surrounded by chaos,” she
explains. “So, I always had a complete story
to write about. But now I’m in a really healthy
place. I’m in a really loving relationship, and I’ve
been surrounded by so much love. When my
team first met me, I was quite broken, but I hid
it quite well. And it was only when they started
working with me, they probably noticed. Now,
I can’t write a song unless something terrible
happens. But I’m surrounded by so much love, I
can actually probably write about positive things,
which feels like a new challenge to me.”
She adds, “Speaking about the love that
surrounds me is seeming like an exciting and a
much healthier place to be.”
“It’s a weird
thing. Life
can be just
going along,
and then
something
flips and
everything
changes”

63
central cee CENTRAL CEE IS the Future of Music, but if you look at the
UK rap scene in 2024, he is unmistakably the present, too.
Since he emerged in 2019, the rapper has sold out arenas,
topped charts and been emblazoned on billboards and
London buses. His 2022 single ‘Doja’ was as omnipresent
as songs get, and through EPs, mixtapes and freestyles, he’s proved himself
a dextrous rapper and an in-your-face personality. A child of the UK’s drill
scene of the 2010s, he’s leading the next generation of stars that are keeping
rap as the dominant UK genre of the day, helped by the fact that the elder
statesmen who influenced him have rushed to give him co-signs.
His only solo release of 2023 — the single ‘Entrapreneur’ — landed
at the tail end of last year, but he still managed to come out on top after
also landing the longest-reigning UK rap single in chart history with Dave
JACK BRIDGLAND

collaboration ‘Sprinter’, taken from the pair’s Split Decision project. A

debut album is still awaited from the rapper though, which could take him
even closer to global superstar status and solidify his promise as a one-of-
a-kind artist.
master
peace
“I CAN MAKE
as many indie
songs as I want,
I can fucking fly this flag,
and people still call me a
rapper,” Master Peace told
Rolling Stone UK last year,
laying out the continued
difficulties for Black artists
to break out of antiquated
boxes that they simply
don’t fit into.
After years of pandering
to others and accepting
being told that he couldn’t
change, Peace Okezie’s
transformative debut
album How to Make a
Master Peace finally sees
him embracing his fierce
love of indie music and
redefining it for 2024.
Packed with hooks and
sleazy instrumentals, the
record could — and should
— become formative for
a new generation of indie
fans and is the delightful

newdad
sound of an artist finally
being allowed to represent
their true self. Alongside
fellow Future of Music

“I’M JUST HOPING that this album cements us as one of the rock bands of this time,” NewDad singer Julie
Dawson told Rolling Stone UK about the group’s debut album Madra late last year.
Take one listen to Madra, and you’ll realise that Dawson’s hopes are well founded. Here is an album that
establishes them as the leading lights of a Gen-Z shoegaze revival and one that can easily stand shoulder-
to-shoulder with the genre’s forebears. “I just want more people to know who we are and be on the radio
everywhere because that would be very, very cool,” said Dawson. “But mostly, we just want to set that standard and prove
what we can do. Because we did disappear for a bit while we tried to figure out where we wanted to take the album. But
honestly, we are all so proud of it and we want to show everyone we’re not messing around.”

caity baser
CAITY BASER BEGAN her year with nominations for both the
BRITs Rising Star and BBC Radio 1 Sound Of 2024 awards
and has returned with new mixtape Still Learning. “I don’t
inductee Rachel Chinouriri, dress things up — it annoys me!” Baser told Rolling Stone
Master Peace is blazing UK. “Say it straight to my face. And what!” Here, Baser distils her
a trail for the future of alluring and potentially arena-filling appeal — her music is about
indie music, finally giving trusting in your convictions, and it also happens to be sugary and
underrepresented voices radio-friendly. “My whole life people have been sugarcoating shit.
their time in the spotlight. I’m just like: ‘Be honest! Even if it hurts my feelings.’”
“I know how hard I’ve had Like many 2020s success stories, her journey began on TikTok,
to fight for people just to but the cheeky personality and melodic strength of her songs
take me in and take away ensures that they translate beyond the app, too. You can draw a
the colour from it, and just direct line from 2000s staples Lily Allen and Kate Nash to Baser
listen to the music,” he told thanks to her conversational, sarcastic tone, but, vitally, her songs
us. “If I can bring that for transcend kitschy elements and pack a serious pop punch as well.
[Black people] and give After flirting with rock and drum’n’bass in past musical lives, she’s
people inspiration to want now settled on pop, and it suits her well — here’s a pop star with
to do it for themselves, I feel bundles of enthusiasm and hit songs with withering kiss-offs to
like my job is complete.” her detractors.

65
lava la rue LAVA LA RUE is a true musical polymath. The singer
started their journey as a founder of south London’s
acclaimed NiNE8 collective — which included the
likes of Mac Wetha and Biig Piig — but they’ve
now broken out to become a true genre-spanning
star in their own right. Their sounds veer from
contemporary rap to more classic, 70s-flecked tunes, and
represent the melting pot of cultures that surrounded them
when growing up in south London.
“We all lived on the same block together, and we went home
and would eat each other’s food, and speak each other’s slang,”
they previously told Rolling Stone UK. “I was raised by the
Caribbean side of my family, and music is so inherent to that
culture. My grandma took me to Black church, and my parents,
who are quite young, were ravers. My mum listened to a lot of
pirate radio: jungle, drum’n’bass, 90s happy hardcore and that
kind of stuff.”
But give their material — including 2022’s excellent Hi-Fidelity
EP — a listen, and you’ll find that none of it feels out of place.
With genre becoming an increasingly obsolete word, Lava La
Rue is redefining what it means to be a true artist.
 sam
tompkins
SAM TOMPKINS
HAD a massive
2023, selling
out Hammersmith Apollo
and even being tipped for
Rolling Stone UK’s Rising
Star Award. Now, it looks
like the musical polymath
is set to continue that hot
streak with his debut album
Hi, My Name Is Insecure, a
powerfully raw dissection
of mental health. “As I’ve
got older and meet more
people, most people I
know have at some point
lost someone they loved
prematurely through
illness, suicide or other
things; myself included,”
he explains.
“It’s coming from a place
where you want to enjoy
your life and move forward,
but in a lot of cases
because you didn’t get
closure, you feel as though
you can’t. You honestly
think maybe just one call
from that person would
give you peace, but sadly
life doesn’t always work like
LAVA LA RUE: BLACKKSOCKS; SAM TOMPKINS: MITCH PERYER

that,” he told Rolling Stone

UK. “When I lost my dad
to suicide in November of
last year, this song felt even
more powerful to me, so it
felt like the most fitting way
to come into 2024. To show
others that they are not
alone in their struggles and
that we can all get through
these things if we just open
up conversation.”

67
big special
“PROP ME UP in a greasy spoon / Under an English summer pale moon / Another desperate
breakfast / Out of the rains of June,” comes the distinctive growl of Big Special singer Joe Hicklin
on ‘Desperate Breakfast’, one of the early stand-out tracks from the Black Country duo.
As those scathing lyrics suggest, Hicklin and drummer Callum Moloney are only too aware
that, as Blur once attested, modern life is rubbish. But where others will trudge along in the
monotonous minutiae of daily life, this pair are experts at dissecting our tumultuous times
in a way that’s rarely been done before, and finding unity in the bleakest of circumstances.
“I think that’s the overall sentiment of our debut album (the upcoming POSTINDUSTRIAL
BLUES),” says Hicklin. “We don’t want to give any answers or say that we know the way.
It’s just us going, ‘This is shit, we know it’s shit, and you know it’s shit, but let’s try and do
something together.’”
There have been plenty of bands raising similar state-of-the-nation moments in recent
years (see the brutal electronics of Teesside noisemakers Benefits), but it’s the sonic palette
of Big Special that makes them a truly exciting proposition.
That aforementioned track skips along with a haunting, Tom Waits-esque groove, while ‘This
Here Ain’t Water’ sees Hicklin transforming into the kind of God-fearing fire-and-brimstone
preacher that you’d expect to see in the deep south of America. Elsewhere, the pounding ‘Trees’
bounces along with an electronic groove that buries itself within your skull after one listen.
Moloney and Hicklin first became friends when they were 17 but went on their own
creative paths before being drawn back together under the lure of Big Special during
lockdown, a decade after their first meeting.
“It sounds cheesy, but the two big green arrows that stand out in my life are when I met
my partner Billie, who I’m now engaged to, and when Joe sent me that first Big Special
demo,” explains Hicklin. “I just thought, ‘I need to be part of this.’” Now, it looks like that
faith is duly paying off. Let us present the band that we think will become a defining act in
the future of UK music.

I was already excited to chat to you two,

but it seems more of an occasion that
we’re chatting on the morning that your
Big Special’s Joe
debut album is announced.
Hicklin and Callum
Moloney are finally HICKLIN: Yeah, it’s been fucking crazy, man.
ready to unleash their Our phones are exploding, and I’ve just
state-of-the-nation had to move my phone away from it, so I
debut album don’t have to hear any of that while we’re
BY NICK REILLY chatting. There’s part of us that feels like
PHOTOGRAPHY BY you’re giving up your child to the world to
JACK ALEXANDER be picked apart, but it’s been the main thing
for us for three years now and we’ve put a
lot of time into this. We’re at our producer’s
house now, just before we send the record
off, and it’s very important to us. After five
o clock today, it’s done and then that’s that.
That’s a bit fucking terrifying, but it’s been a
long time coming, man.
One thing that really stood out to me is
the variety in your songs. It’s easy to pin
Joe Hicklin
(left) and
Callum
Moloney

69
you both as this state-of-the-nation duo, made him abandon some comfy financial HICKLIN: I completely understood his reasons
but there’s some amazing depth and soul gigs in order to do this band. too, but I did say to my wife that I was going
in there. MOLONEY: We were in bands as kids, and we to ask Cal one more time. I sent him our demo
HICKLIN: We like to think so. We pretty much came together after a decade of not writing for ‘This Here Ain’t Water’ and, well…
had the idea for this album before the band. music together. I was a drummer, and I MOLONEY: It sounds cheesy, but the two big
It was like we came together to make this always say it’s impossible to make money as a green arrows that stand out in my life are
album, which really feels like a bit of a journey drummer. If you ever have kids, and they want when I met my partner Billie, who I’m now
through a lot of levels. On one hand, it’s a to pick up an instrument, don’t give them a engaged to, and when Joe sent me that demo.
record that tackles the cycles of depression pair of fucking drums because they’ll be broke I just thought, ‘I need to be part of this.’ I left a
I’ve gone through, but we want it to flow, and until they’re in their thirties! bunch of the wedding bands and started doing
we’re quite open to genres. We’ve got huge But I’d been playing in a bunch of function more work on the vans to make up for it.
influences from across the board. So, if we bands, and for once I was getting decent money Three years on, and it’s been the best decision
wanted to do something a bit more soul, we from it. I was working on the vans too, and the I ever made because it’s been mad.
could go in that direction. If we wanted to do money was good there. So, when Joe messaged HICKLIN: It’s funny what comes out of
something a bit more hip hop or a bit more me saying, “I want to start a band,” it was tough. stressful periods because I wasn’t even
punk, we could go in that direction as long as That’s a big, open-ended statement, especially working at the time I wanted to make this
we can do whatever we want. There needs to when you’re nearing 30 like we were. I didn’t band. I was in a fucking mad depression, and
be a central voice of what we’re doing and that want to be that dad in fucking denim down it’s just mad that it’s all come back around. We
gives us creative freedom. the pub when I’m 40, so initially I said no. I’d just filmed our latest video in the place where
Another thing that struck me is the story been with my partner for seven years at that we used to rehearse, like, 13 years ago when
behind you two coming together. You were point too, and she’d stuck me out when I wasn’t we were kids.
friends, but Callum’s faith in the project making decent money. MOLONEY: I wish we could, like, lean over
the shoulder of them 18-year-old lads and be
like, “Oi! In 12 fucking years’ time, you’re still
gonna be broke. But you’re gonna be buzzing!”
HICKLIN: I’d reply, “12 fucking years?! That long!”
You’ve really landed on something with your
lyrics though. ‘Desperate Breakfast’ feels
like this incredible reflection of the rut and
malaise that so much of the UK seems to be
in right now.
HICKLIN: This is the thing I wanna tackle and
write about with my music. It’s just honest,
man. It’s just about personal experience, and
if I can be honest about what’s happening day
to day to me, then that might be happening to
however many other people, you know.
MOLONEY: It’s us being honest and open
about the social depression of England at
the moment. The lack of any sort of cultural
identity and the ignorance towards the
working class. The mental health needs of
the nation — we’re just trying to look at that
darkness through our own eyes.
What have your own experiences of that
been like?
HICKLIN: I wasn’t working when I formed this
band, and it was pretty bad. It was lockdown,
when we were forced to be retrospective, and
I was going over years of work and family and
how all the things in that realm tend to work.
Work, trying to be professional while dealing
with mental health issues, and how that
relates to anyone. But there’s a real thread of
hope through the album too. Me and Cal talk
a lot about how much our wives support us,
and with my wife, she’s been a massive part of
that. A big part of the album to me is how she
just wouldn’t see me drown.
But the album ends on the song ‘Dig’, and
it’s about that feeling of something being
shit, but you just gotta keep fucking moving
 “it does feel
like we’ve just
announced
that we’re
pregnant.
Now we’re
finally ready
to let our child
out” — Callum

forward and see what happens. I think that’s

the overall sentiment. We don’t want to give
any answers or say that we know the way. It’s
just us going, “This is shit, we know it’s shit,
and you know it’s shit, but let’s try and do
something together.”
MOLONEY: Joe says it live quite a lot, there’s a
lot of power in shouting at the void together.
It’s a big release for people to be able to come
and just shout at the void!
What are the politics of Big Special? Your
music touches on quite a lot of social issues,
but it never feels too implicit or preachy.
HICKLIN: We love music that does that. We love
Benefits and that on-the-nose political thing
they do so well, but we want to be creative in
our way too. I don’t want to hide anything,
though. Like, I can tell you now that we’re
both fully leftist, it’s just that we don’t want to
nail ourselves to a post too much in our music.
We’re not trying to explain anything to anyone.
We like the idea of people taking their own
view from our music; we try and be personal
so that people can relate to the wider human
experience of what we’re on about.
MOLONEY: We don’t wait to nail it to a post weapon too, our kid. He can scream the most trying to make that leap into being a band that
either. To be like, ‘Oh, we’re just a political important lyrics you’ve ever heard back at people recognise and take seriously. We’d be
band. We’re just a working-class band. We’re you, and then the next minute he’ll sound like doing one gig a month because that’s all we
just a mental health band.’ Because the more fucking Frank Sinatra! had the time for, and then suddenly it’d be like,
you start doing that, the narrower are the You’ve already got quite a bit of support in “Wow, Steve Lamacq played our music!” That’s
opportunities. It’s clear that we’re talking your corner too — Steve Lamacq and Tom enough momentum for people to pay attention
about the Tories, but there’s a million other Robinson have been constant champions of to what we do. That confidence boost can keep
things you can take from our music. your band on 6Music. you going for another month because there
Another thing that struck me is the sheer MOLONEY: Ah, good old Lammo! I was can be a lot of rejection in the industry, people
breadth of your sound too. On one hand actually in London with my fiancée in Brixton turning away and not listening.
you’ve got electronic beats like ‘Trees’, but for a gig, and we were walking back to our So, he’s been really nice, and so too have
then ‘This Here Ain’t Water’ sounds like a airbnb afterwards when we just bumped all the fans who jumped on and supported
god-fearing preacher launching one hell of into him! He plays the music of thousands of us. We haven’t had any real negativity; people
a sermon! bands, but he just stopped and was chatting to have been supportive and it feels like they’re
HICKLIN: One of the main things is I knew I me for 20 minutes about how much he loves getting our music and what it’s about too.
didn’t want to play the guitar on stage, and this band. He championed us before we got That’s why it feels so nice to announce
then the rest of it was experimenting with that signed in December 2022. He found it, heard the album this morning. People have been
and defining what our sound would become. it, and whacked it on. Tom Robinson asked us sending a load of support to us and it’s lovely.
MOLONEY: And that’s funny because Joe is to support him at a little gig in Brum too. It does feel like we’ve just announced that
from a guitar background; no one knows how It’s underrated how much of a big deal it is we’re pregnant. Now we’re finally ready to let
good this guy is on guitar. He’s got this secret to smaller bands, you know, like when you’re our child out!

71
 lambrini
girls
LAMBRINI
GIRLS — Phoebe
Lunny and Lilly
Macieira — possess the
same energy that you’d
expect to develop after
necking a bottle of the
boozy stuff from which
they take their name.
Unpredictable, chaotic,
but ultimately here for a
good time, the Brighton
duo offer killer riffs and
irrepressible energy in
songs that rail against the
patriarchy and pretty much
every form of prejudice
going. The inclusive
energy at their live shows,
meanwhile, is enough to
make you leave with a new
fire burning deep in your
soul. They were nominated
for Rolling Stone UK’s
Rising Star Award in 2023,
but in 2024 their talent
looks likely to soar into the

anish kumar stratosphere.

“I just think with
anything, it’s obviously
easier to be passionate
about something that
IF YOU WANT to get an idea of what the future of British dance music looks like, you’d do worse than to
pay attention to Dialled In. The organisation, which focuses on music made by British South Asians, says
of itself: “Our purpose is to spotlight and platform the wealth of South Asian artistry by building long-term,
self-sustainable spaces to ensure our culture is held while it evolves and expands.”
Leading this pack of exciting new names in dance music is Anish Kumar, a Cambridge veterinary
medicine student who weaves house, disco and more in with sounds that honour his heritage. His 2023 release A Mixtape
by Anish Kumar is a melting pot of sounds and energies, all tied together by his now-signature commitment to bright, sunny
rhythms. His secret weapon, though, is the jubilant ‘Little Miss Dynamite’, which samples Brenda Lee’s 1964 track ‘Is It True’
and turnsit into a sun-soaked house monster. This skill and invention sets Kumar apart as a special new voice in a scene that
will only become more influential in 2024. For further reading, check out Surya Sen, Yung Singh and DJ Priya.

ren
ARTISTS WITH THE natural charisma and pure
honesty of Ren don’t come around too often. The affects you directly,”
singer hit the headlines at the end of 2022 when he Macieira told Rolling Stone
released ‘Hi Ren’, a track that discusses a range of UK last year of their open-
auto-immune conditions that he was recently diagnosed with, hearted spirit. “There’s
including Lyme disease. The song connected with people due nothing necessarily wrong
to its unfiltered honesty and Ren’s determination to look on with that. But I think we
the bright side despite years of misdiagnoses. can all push ourselves
“Dark topics don’t always have to be ugly, and there can be a little bit further and
a lot of beauty and richness to be found in those moments,” think about the people all
Ren told Rolling Stone UK last year, specifically referencing his around us and think about
track ‘Suic*de’. “Sometimes by facing them fearlessly maybe all of these awful things
we can understand them better.” On debut album Sick Boi, that are going on for trans
he lays out these issues and pushes past them with stunning people specifically at the
musicality and a wide range of musical references. Ren has moment. It’s important
JACK BRIDGLAND

spoken of how his audience have come together, bounded to be passionate about
by the “very human thread” of the music and its message. It’s any issues that diminish
impossible not to be moved by this story and the one-of-a- anyone’s identity and
kind singer behind it. anyone’s right to exist.”
ANISH KUMAR: REUBEN BASTIENNE-LEWIS; LAMBRINI GIRLS: BRIDIE FLORENCE

nia archivesIT TAKES A special kind of artist to spearhead the popular revival of an entire
genre of music all by themselves. Jungle has never stopped bubbling away
since its 90s heyday, but it’s back on the radio now thanks to Nia Archives.
The Yorkshire-born, London-based producer’s effervescent attitude and
boisterous anthems have seen her support Beyoncé and become the sound
of festival season in recent years, and her sound is already signature.
A Nia Archives remix is the hottest property around in 2024, as Fred again..
and others can attest, and her ascendance is also spotlighting a continued
underappreciation for a genre of music that can be heard in some of the biggest pop
hits of the century.
This year will see Nia Archives take her revivalism global, while also pushing
things forwards. On radio shows and during raves, Nia has worked to readdress the
side-lining of Black women in jungle’s past and future, putting in the work as well as
lighting up dance floors across the world.

73
chy cartier TOTTENHAM RAPPER CHY Cartier joins an
exclusive list of musicians from the north
London neighbourhood. As well as the obvious
Adele, those same streets have been the proving
ground for Skepta, JME, Wretch 32, Avelino and
more. The area’s deep musical heritage — especially in rap — is
in safe hands with Cartier, a dextrous and ambitious wordsmith
with the thudding beats to back it up. Recent single ‘BOSSED
UP’ is her greatest achievement yet, where an irresistible hook
is teamed with bars that are teeming with passion but never
rushed. “‘BOSSED UP’ is about having solid ambition,” she said
of the song, and hers is immediately apparent. “Don’t wait for
nobody,” she says with confidence in the track’s spoken-word
JACK BRIDGLAND

section, before she launches into yet another fiery verse. Here
is the next great voice of the London rap scene.
 antslive LONDON-BASED RAPPER AntsLive knows
that he’s already making waves. His latest
mixtape Just a Matter of Time boasts a
title that feels like he’s on the path to
greatness within UK rap. Similarly, that mixtape
contains the earworm ‘Number One Candidate’,
which sees AntsLive clearly stating his manifesto
for greatness. “I’m a young CEO, gotta do as you’re
told,” he boldly offers.
The visuals take that to the next level too, as he
tears through the Dolomites on an actual horse that
he learnt to ride after hastily taking a riding course
in Warwickshire in the weeks before the shoot. The
video soon went viral, with the likes of KSI lauding
his efforts on social media. Commitment to the
cause, yes, but crystal-clear proof that he’s an artist
acutely aware of his vision and the things it takes
to get noticed. Expect that name to become even
more prominent throughout 2024.

porij
SINCE EMERGING IN 2020, Porij
have constantly shape-shifted to
circumstances both internal and
external. After adapting to being a new
band in a pandemic, they then exited the scene
at the same time as losing two founding members
in early 2022. Debut album Teething, due out on
26 April via PIAS, documents this process and
pieces the band back together. “To be perfectly
honest, it was terrifying,” frontperson Eggy said of
the experience. “I remember going through that
time feeling like we were sharks: if we stopped
swimming, we were gonna die.” It’s all poured into
a debut album that’s restorative as well as reactive.
CHY CARTIER: HENRY GOODFELLOW

Porij have supported Metronomy on tour in the

past and make a similar kind of alluringly wonky pop
music. They twist unusual ingredients into catchy
alt-pop defined by its exploratory nature. With toes
dipped into rave culture, straight-up indie, pure
pop, UK garage and beyond, they’re an amalgam
of the UK’s 21st-century musical culture. What’s
regurgitated by Porij is fresh and fascinating, and
they are a brilliant new voice on the pop landscape.

75
can’t swim
barry
FOR YEARS BEFORE he became Barry Can’t Swim, Joshua Mainnie couldn’t decide what he
wanted. The Edinburgh-raised, London-based musician played every role in multiple indie
bands while sharing his love of jazz and electronic music across a host of projects, before he
made one of them stick.
“I get very bored very quickly,” the Scotsman chuckles over video call from Montreal,
where he’s heading towards the end of a sold-out tour of North America. Straight afterwards,
he’ll be into rehearsals for a new live show that will hit London’s Roundhouse, Coachella
and more. “If I ever started a project and it didn’t go in the direction that I wanted within six
or nine months, I’d often drop it,” he admits now, even saying that “the Barry thing” didn’t
have much conscious thought put into it at the outset. “When you start this shit, you don’t
think it’s going to become your whole life!” he laughs. “I thought the name was a bit of a
funny joke and just ran with it.”
On the cusp of a Against his natural instincts, it looks like Mainnie will have to remain as Barry Can’t Swim
breakout year, Joshua for a long time. In the few years since the project’s inception, Mainnie has become one of the
Mainnie talks trusting
most buzzy and in-demand figures on the UK’s dance music scene, propelled by his eclectic
his instincts, how he
finds true originality, and dazzling debut album When Will We Land?, released via Ninja Tune in late 2023. On it,
and why dance music he traverses jazz, club music and beyond with astonishing attention to detail. His live show,
needs to take itself meanwhile, has packed rooms at home and abroad, as well as at Glastonbury and beyond.
less seriously “What I’ve been doing has fortunately resonated with people in a certain way, and it’s
BY WILL RICHARDS made it easier for me to stay enthused by it,” he says. “You want people to enjoy what you do,
PHOTOGRAPHY BY and if you say you don’t, you’re kidding yourself. Why are you making music and releasing
JACK ALEXANDER it outside of your bedroom then?”
In the past few years of the project, Mainnie has turned into a lauded and exciting DJ too,
despite only learning the craft out of necessity during the pandemic when he was getting
requests to perform DJ sets as Barry Can’t Swim and wanted to fulfil them. “It kind of annoys
me when people call me a DJ,” he says. “I’ve been playing instruments for decades and was
producing for five years before I even touched a set of decks. I really enjoy it now, and it’s a total
art in itself, but I don’t think that being a DJ makes you an electronic musician or vice versa.”
His Boiler Room set from his hometown of Edinburgh is packed full of buoyant and playful
beats, with Mainnie skipping around the booth with an ever-present grin. It’s this infectious
energy and fun-loving nature that defines his sets, and it’s indicative of a wider trend in
dance music in the post-pandemic world: artists are having more fun.
“I’ve always been somewhat disillusioned by the chin-stroking element of dance music,”
he says. “I just think it’s a bit unnecessary, and a lot of the time artists themselves aren’t
necessarily like that — it’s fans that attach that to us. I’ve never really had time for that.
People are far too concerned with how they are perceived and how they look in that scene,
and some of the love is lost along the way.”
77
“we say this
a lot, but it
really is hard
to believe,”
says Danielle.
“what’s
going on?
what just
happened?”
 For an example of the rubbishing of this
ethos, look no further than when Barry
went b2b with fellow Ninja Tune signing and
Manchester-based producer salute (Felix Nyajo)
for three-hour shows in Australia at the start
of the year. During the sets, which caused
roadblocks outside venues in Sydney and
Melbourne, Mainnie and Nyajo had the absolute
time of their lives while playing both cutting-
edge house and club classics, their unrelenting
energy bouncing off each other throughout.
“Part of the reason those sets have done quite
well [online] is because it’s all really sincere,”
says Mainnie. “We met for the first time in
New Zealand just before and went for some
pints, and I just came up with the idea of the
b2b there and then. We ended up shutting the
whole block down! When you’re bringing that
energy, and it’s real, it connects with people.”
Alongside this burgeoning DJ career, Barry
Can’t Swim is also set to bring a new and beefed-
up live show across the world in 2024. “It’s not
a typical electronic music live show,” he teases.
“It feels really live, and it feels like a band.”

TRUSTING GUT INSTINCTS and following what

feels good is the guiding principle behind
Barry Can’t Swim, and this idea is also evident
across When Will We Land?. Though the music
is packed with nuance and detail, it’s also a
masterclass in trusting your first and
scrappiest idea, none more so than on
highlight ‘Deadbeat Gospel’. The track features
the recital of a poem read to Mainnie by old
friend and Dublin-based artist somedeadbeat,
recorded at the drunken hour of 4am after a
Barry Can’t Swim show in the city where he
and his friend had reconnected after some
years out of touch. and you just didn’t mean to do it, that you find commitment to not being taken too seriously
The recording is imperfect and scratchy, but something completely true.” and having the maximum amount of fun
it captures the essence of the moment and of He adds, “What people are really asking for possible. As Mainnie posits: if dance music is
Barry Can’t Swim’s ethos as a whole. Drunken in their music isn’t something that’s hyper- meant to make people happy and dance, why
revellers pass by, and lines are messed up, but clean and really polished all the time. They wouldn’t you also be having fun making it?
when the pair tried to record a cleaner and want to feel something when they listen “I think it’s definitely a trend, but it’s not
more polished version in the studio for use on to music, and that’s why you can still listen something that I consciously do. Maybe
the album, the initial energy of the piece was to music from 60 or 70 years ago, which the world is just ready for that and it’s just
completely sapped. objectively speaking is probably recorded worked in my favour,” he says, with the likes
“It’s about happy accidents, right?” says pretty badly compared to nowadays. You can of salute, Fred again.. and I. Jordan becoming
Mainnie, with a smile. “I’ve thought about this still feel so much in it though because it’s not larger-than-life personalities as well as killer
a lot on a deeper level. Happy accidents are the really about that: it’s about the emotional DJs, bringing character and energy back to
only true form of actual originality. Everything connection. The fact that [‘Deadbeat Gospel’] the booth in a long overdue vibe shift. “The
that you’re consciously writing or doing is based is on a shit recording transports you further origins of dance music are about community,
on what you’ve heard before. Even the way into that moment. Hearing him re-do it in the bringing people together, having fun and
that music scales in the West are completely studio, I just thought, ‘This could be anything.’” sharing an experience on the dance floor,”
different to what they are in India or other This paradox at the heart of Barry Can’t Mainnie says. “Sometimes in the more leftfield
places. You can’t ever truly do something that’s Swim is also the thing that is making him a star. lanes of electronic music, that’s lost a little bit.
completely fresh and out of the box, because His music is deeply considered and lovingly “You can still have fun and enjoy yourself
it’s all based on what you’ve already heard. crafted, but simultaneously an unconscious and play credible sets,” he smiles, dusting off
It’s in those little moments, when there’s some splurge straight from the heart and the hips. the shackles of the self-serious purists and
mistake in something when you’re producing, He’s a deep thinker but also wants to completely hip-shaking his way into a summer that’s set
or something completely happens by chance let go. What ties it all together, though, is a to make him a star.

79
griff
GRIFF IS A
student of
21st-century
pop music and is set
on carving out her own
fascinating corner of it.
She exists in the lineage of
Lorde’s hyper-specific and
emotional lyricism, as well
as Taylor Swift’s knack for
a killer hook. You can also
look to the likes of Grimes
and Imogen Heap when
tracing the influence of
her almost entirely self-
produced songs.
As much as she’s
a pop powerhouse in
waiting, she’s equally
happy being a studio
wizard, and twists her
catchy songs in off-kilter
directions with punchy,
leftfield production. On
the other end of the scale,
she’s supported both
Coldplay and Dua Lipa
on stadium and arena
tours respectively, and
feels entirely comfortable

high vis
THE MAINSTREAM EXPLOSION of Turnstile in recent
years has brought a greater spotlight onto the
world of hardcore. The subculture that’s thrived
underground for decades and occasionally risen
above it is experiencing another wave of
attention. In the UK, much of that attention
is being directed towards High Vis. Though the London
five-piece don’t sound too much like traditional hardcore
— their swirling, melodic songs are closer to Madchester
taking these bedroom — their ethic is hardcore through and through, as is their
productions to the biggest background in a countless list of far heavier bands.
stages possible. As well as their hugely catchy melodies, the thing making
New EP vert1go vol. 1 High Vis catch on is their unflinchingly honest lyrics,
shows a sharpening of particularly the track ‘Trauma Bonds’ from 2022 LP Blending.
her sound and lyrics in On it, vocalist Graham Sayle — who possesses a beautifully
that she doesn’t settle for gravelly voice from Merseyside — ruminates on the death by
a tidy narrative, and this suicide of many of his friends and wonders of his remaining
should be furthered on a companions: “Are we still lucky to be here?” At live shows,
debut album due in 2024. it’s become a rare moment of true catharsis and a bonafide
Griff is leading a new anthem. “People are just attracted to the kind of honesty
generation of pop stars involved in this stuff,” Sayle told Rolling Stone UK last year of
taking control over their hardcore’s appeal, and High Vis embody every inch of it.
sound and their future,
making radio-ready songs
with depth and profundity.
 JAMES MATTHEWS

81
 elmiene
COMBINING ELEMENTS OF classic
sounds with neo-soul, Elmiene
is winning rightful praise across
the globe. This 22-year-old British
singer songwriter (aka Abdala Elamin) is a
dab hand at contrasting smooth, classic soul
with some of the genre’s newer greats such
as 90s icon D’Angelo. Breakthrough track
‘Golden’ is the perfect encapsulation of what
the artist all about. He’s already received
praise in high places too, having co-written
for Stormzy and worked with Sampha on a
number of projects.
“Growing up, I was a quiet only child;
I’d spend all day watching people, just
observing mannerisms,” he told Rolling
Stone UK last year. “I felt like soul and R&B
was based on observations, things that
aren’t always obvious to the naked eye
— like, 90s neo-soul, Donnie Hathaway’s
60s and 70s records, or Stevie Wonder’s
classic records, they all speak about the
unspoken and the unseen in a way that’s
tangible and so eloquent. It really captured
my imagination as a kid: ‘This is sick, what’s
going on?’ Stevie and Donnie taught me
how to sing; it’s in my DNA, my blood.”

sprints
WHEN IRISH ROCKERS
Sprints released their
debut album Letter to
Self in January, it was
clear that we had a rock record
that would define the whole year.
The spiky, arena-primed riffs of
guitarist Colm O’Reilly bound along
with the confidence of a band far
beyond their tentative years and
feel like the kind of stuff that is
bound to ignite moshpits for a new
generation of rockers at this year’s
festival season. But there is real
depth too. On ‘Cathedral’, singer
Karla Chubb vocalises her battles
at being a queer woman growing
SPRINTS: NIAMH BARRY

up underneath the oft-oppressive

background of the Catholic church.
This fully formed debut and the
group’s relentless spirit suggests
they’ll be a defining band in years
to come.
 lynks
LYNKS IS A sleazy, hilarious, gimp
mask-wearing pop powerhouse.
After spending the first three years
of the decade sprinkling sexually
charged bangers out into the
world, developing a reputation as
a raucous live performer, and collaborating
with Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes and
Metronomy, they will emerge with debut album
Abomination on 12 April via Heavenly.
On it, they tackle subjects such as the
bleak, often banal thrills of riding the DLR
to a one-night stand (‘(What Did You Expect
From) Sex with a Stranger’), and the ageist
undertones of sexual proclivity (‘Use It
Or Lose It’). All these topics are tackled
with laugh-out-loud one-liners but an
understanding of their importance, too, as
Lynks explained to Rolling Stone UK last year:
“Writing some songs that were a bit more
emotional than, for example, ‘How to Make a
Béchamel Sauce In 10 Steps’, really helped,
and they still resonated with people.”
MARS WASHINGTON

It’s a rare skill to be able to shoehorn

important and vital conversations into songs
packed with absurd, filthy jokes, and Lynks hits
the sweet spot perfectly. Their message — and
their bangers — deserve to blow up in 2024.

83
the last
dinner
party
WE’RE ALMOST OUT of superlatives to
describe this lot, so let us put it in simple
terms: The Last Dinner Party are the most
exciting British band to have emerged
in a generation. We knew it from the
minute we heard the stunning new-wave
stomp of their debut single ‘Nothing Matters’, and we
certainly knew it when we gave them their first-ever
award, The Rising Star Award, at the Rolling Stone UK
Awards, in collaboration with Rémy Martin, last year.
The ultimate proof comes in the form of their stunning
number-one-charting debut album Prelude to Ecstasy,
on which stadium-filling anthems rub shoulders with
all manner of baroque pop curios.
All of this is to say that they’re superstars in the
making and most certainly the future of music. “The
lyrics, the music, the way we look — none of it is an
act or a character. It’s all us, but in our platonic form
rather than a Ziggy Stardust-type of character. It’s us
at our full capacity,” they recently told Rolling Stone
UK of their debut. They’re a brilliant live proposition
too, with singer Abigail Morris displaying a star quality
that’s somewhere in between Kate Bush and Freddie
Mercury, but entirely her own. We can’t wait to see
what’s next.

CAL MCINTYRE
 english
teacher
ENGLISH
TEACHER’S debut
LP This Could
Be Texas (out 12 April via
Island) is a masterclass
in mixing modern-day
banality (see song titles
like ‘The World’s Biggest
Paving Slab’) with a
wide-eyed desire to burst
beyond it.
The band are led by Lily
Fontaine — a magnetic
frontperson — who gives
their guitar music, which
ranges from post-punk
to 80s indie-pop and
beyond, a distinct and
exciting personality. In her
lyrics, she grapples with
identity and inaccurate
stereotyping. “Despite
appearances, I haven’t got
the voice for R&B,” she
sings on the band’s brilliant
debut single ‘R&B’. Instead,
she fronts a post-punk

sekou
band that’s pushing the

WITH A FAN BASE that includes the likes of Quincy Jones, Dua Lipa, Anderson Paak and Bruno Mars,
Sekou is already attracting attention in all the right places. But take a listen to his latest releases and you’ll
see why they’ve all fallen for the soul-flecked talents of the Leicester teenager. His debut EP Out of Mind
arrived last year and saw soulful edges being balanced against retro pop sounds, while ‘Time Will Tell’
marked one of his most powerful, stop-you-in-your-tracks moments to date.
“I’m definitely writing towards an album, but it won’t come out for another two years,” he said. “Albums come and go so
quickly nowadays. Artists will drop one, and minutes later everyone has already moved on. Doing an album is bigger than
that for me. I want to do one when I know everyone’s going to hear it. I definitely want to do another EP. I have a few features
in the pipeline, and I worked on a Queen-inspired song with Labrinth. I just want to continue building my audience.”

shygirl
THOUGH SHE HAS been an emerging star for
years and has a Mercury Prize nomination
under her belt for debut album Nymph,
Shygirl’s status as the Future of Music is
more justified than ever heading into 2024. The
genre forwards in new artist — a rapper, singer, curator — began the year by
and fresh ways, beyond releasing Club Shy, her paean to nightlife culture and
the late 2010s explosion an extension of the parties she has been throwing
ENGLISH TEACHER: TATIANA POZUELO

that threatened to go worldwide under the same name.

stale. “It’s looking like a Linked to the worlds of hyper-pop and PC Music
very intimidating year,” but not boxed into them, Shygirl floats between the
Fontaine told Rolling Stone underground and mainstream radio without having to
UK of 2024, during which choose between them. If she wanted to, she has more
the band will release their than enough charisma and lyrical prowess to become a
debut album and play their household name though. Instead, she might continue
biggest shows to date. blazing a futuristic, leftfield trail through boundary-
Only intimidating for the pushing music and year-defining parties. Either way, it’s
competition, we’d say. impossible to take your eyes off her.

85
86 | Rolling Stone
“MY PASSION
IN LIFE IS
CHILLING”
In the five years since the release of Father of the Bride,
Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig has lived across the world
with his family, shed a cynicism that had followed him around
since his teens, and made new album Only God Was Above
Us, the band’s most interconnected statement yet — all while
discovering a new laidback philosophy

BY WILL RICHARDS
PHOTOGRAPHY BY EVA PENTEL

87
 Vampire Weekend

Beginning That doesn’t mean I was always in a bad mood,

but just had a sense of, ‘The world sucks, you

an album
can’t trust people!’
“You get thrown a few bones by the universe,
and that’s great — enjoy them while you can, but

with the
don’t get used to it. That’s how I could reconcile
the fact that we made happy, fun music at
times. Back then, if someone told me that life is

lyric “fuck
inherently meaningful, I’d probably have been a
smartarse and said: ‘Well, can you prove that?’
“There’s someThing provocaTive about Later in life, I’ve realised that it’s a choice you

the world”
opening with that line, but it was important make. Your life is inherently meaningful, if you
to me that it was in quotation marks,” he tells allow it to be.”

is a bold
me from the sofa of a plush London hotel, In the five years after their debut, Vampire
where he’s just wrapped his Rolling Stone UK Weekend released two more albums — 2010’s
photoshoot. “It says, ‘Fuck the world / You said Contra and the critically revered third album

and
it quiet’. We’re not out here on some Mötley Modern Vampires of the City — and solidified
Crüe bad boy shit. ‘Middle fingers up, Vampire their place as mainstays of the alternative
Weekend’s back!’” scene. They were a band with unstoppable

pointed
Rather than a balls-out statement of intent, momentum, but Koenig says it was all wrapped
the lyric that opens ‘Ice Cream Piano’, the up in anxiety and worry — if you take your
first track from the band’s fifth album Only foot off the gas, you’ll never get back to this

choice,
God Was Above Us, is a softly sung and solemn point. It was the six-year gap between Modern
admission of cynicism. “It’s about somebody Vampires and 2019’s Father of the Bride — a
who’s either talking to someone or arguing with gap their success afforded them — that began

but Ezra
themselves,” Koenig says of the song. “They’re to shift the pace and meaning of Koenig’s life,
talking about a fatalism and a cynicism. It’s as well as welcoming his first child with actor
a type of anger at life and at the world — fuck Rashida Jones.

Koenig
the world. There’s definitely ambivalence and “I was starting to drop the anxiety of my
anxiety in that song, and there is a lot of that in youth which told me you can never wait too
the early songs on the record.” long,” he reflects. “It was great to spend a lot

has a few
You might not think it from listening to one of time reflecting, because deep down, my
of the sunniest, most buoyant bands of the passion in life is chilling. It always has been. I

qualifiers
21st century, but cynicism has followed Koenig even remember in the early days I was talking
around since he was a teenager. Vampire to another guy in a band who’s very intense,
Weekend emerged from the post-Strokes making music all the time. We were talking

to share.
indie rock scene of New York City in the late about the future, and at the time I lived in New
2000s. Defined by their preppy dress sense York, and I can remember saying, ‘I think my
and Columbia education, their debut self- vibe is just walking on the Upper East Side
titled album from 2008 was full of sprightly getting coffee. That’s what I want to do.’
rhythms and Koenig’s polite, distinctive voice. “You lose that as you get hyper-fixated on
It spawned generational hits ‘A-Punk’ and your career, but then as I got older, it returned
‘Oxford Comma’ and set the band — Koenig, to me. I was like, ‘Right, that’s why I work so
now-departed multi-instrumentalist and hard. So that I can have years of idleness and
producer Rostam Batmanglij, bassist Chris Baio walking around chilling.’ I can also create a
and drummer Chris Tomson — on the path to narrative where I say that all that time allows me
becoming stars of 21st-century indie. to become a better artist and more focused, and
It also sounded like the music of blissfully I think that’s probably true, but above all, it’s
happy twenty-somethings living their dream, just what I like to do.”
but Koenig tells me there was gloom behind the
painted-on smile. “I had a world view from the
ages of about 12 to 35: there are good things in
the world, but more often than not, there are
more bad things, and it’s disappointing. I didn’t
have belief that there was anything beyond
that. Looking back, it was a smug, self-satisfied
feeling of thinking, ‘Yeah, I understand reality.’

88 | Rolling Stone | April/May 2024

 Vampire Weekend

I
n the five years between Father of the Crisis, a laugh-heavy Beats 1 radio show
Bride and Only God Was Above Us, Koenig got with Jake Longstreth, his sense of humour
plenty of chilling in. During that time, he and comes most alive when away from Vampire
his family — until then based in Los Angeles — Weekend’s music. During our conversation, he

“I was just
spent extended periods of time in London, Tokyo is considered and careful with some answers,
and back in New York. Longtime producer and leaving long pauses before responding in

out there
collaborator Ariel Rechtshaid (HAIM, Madonna, an erudite manner. To others, he responds
Charli XCX) would sometimes come and meet instantly with a razor-sharp putdown either at
him wherever he happened to be stationed, but his or others’ expense.
the creation of the album largely went at Koenig’s
own glacial pace. “My wife would be working 14 pounding the “I had a feeling that once we hit the road
and did our thing, it’d add another layer to

pavements
hours a day, and my son was in school, so I was the band,” he says of the evolution of Vampire
just out there pounding the pavements of Tokyo, Weekend across their latest tour. “I felt happily

of Tokyo,
lost in my thoughts,” he smiles. validated when we did it. By the time we were
Father of the Bride, released in May 2019, selling out the [Madison Square] Garden, we
acted as a turning point for Vampire Weekend actually were closer than ever. Once we got to
in multiple ways. It was the band’s first
album without Batmanglij as a permanent lost in my this album, [presenting as] the three of us just
felt so right. The truth is, I love those guys,
member, and he went on to produce for the
likes of Charli XCX, Clairo and HAIM. He still
contributed to parts of the band’s fourth
thoughts” and they’ve given me such an amazing vote of
confidence over the years by allowing me to
do what I want in the studio.” While Vampire
album but appears on none of Only God Was Weekend largely remains a Koenig-controlled
Above Us. It also arrived soon after the birth of studio project, he reveals that he, Baio and
Koenig’s son, though he admits that listeners’ Tomson are also working on a side project
assumption in associating the album title — together which he describes as “just the three of
written before he became a dad — with its will always be a brotherhood and a unit, but it us — a bit more democratic”.
perceived subject matter is overplayed. “To didn’t seem like the most useful public-facing The changes made in the Father of the Bride
me, fatherhood is something that creeps up unit at that moment.” era affected every facet of the creation of Only
on you,” he reflects. “I talk to people who say, At the same time as this recalibration, the God Was Above Us. While Koenig was chilling
‘The first moment I held my child, everything band were building a new seven-piece live around the world with his family, he would
changed.’ I’ve never had moments like that. It band that would completely transform them. pop into studios in New York and London and
was definitely an important moment, but it’s Joined by enigmatic guitarist Brian Robert Jones implement somewhat of an open-door policy
the years after and the overall change of having (Paramore, MUNA), keys player and vocalist for collaborators. At Andrew Watt’s studio in
a family that really changes you.” Greta Morgan and others, they became an New York, he was joined by Dev Hynes of Blood
To promote Father of the Bride, Koenig absolute powerhouse on tour with the loose, Orange, who rocked up with a broken arm after
appeared in press photos and interviews alone, unrestricted quality of a jam band. “We wanted a footballing accident. “At first he tried playing
blurring the line between Vampire Weekend as to present this big, happy family — which it was!” something on bass, but it was too awkward
a solo project and a band, to the point where Koenig smiles. “It was a good way of sidestepping to play with his cast,” Koenig laughs, with
many didn’t know whether Baio and Tomson a difficult and transitional moment.” Hynes then offering the even more outlandish
would be a part of the band when the tour On the tour, old songs were given new life, proposition of getting behind the drum kit. The
behind the album began. “There was a lot of covers were liberally sprinkled into the set unorthodox tubthumping that followed now
figuring out to do, and we talked about it very (notably an irresistibly funky version of the appears on the bright and melodic ‘Prep-School
openly as a band,” he explains now. “I felt like Koenig-featuring SBTRKT track ‘New Dorp. Gangsters’, and Koenig credits the contribution
we were heading into a headwind. Our indie New York’), and it looked like each of the as “the key to unlocking the song”.
era was over, our line-up has changed, we’re seven members was having the time of their In his time away from the studio, he walked
old now. Fourth albums are often slightly life. During the tour, they played an 11am around cities worldwide listening to mixes and
difficult. No one talks about a quadrilogy; it’s rarities set on Glastonbury’s Park Stage and texting Rechtshaid “getting excited about LP6,”
a trilogy!” he exclaims. “I remember thinking another morning show at London’s Islington and introduced Jones and Hynes to his new
that it was going to be a struggle, and we didn’t Assembly Hall, with coffee and pastries for jam band obsession by bringing them along to
want to look like damaged goods [in the press]. attendees. At the latter show, they meme-ified a Phish gig at Madison Square Garden. “I threw
‘All right, what have these guys been up to? their biggest hit, ‘A-Punk’, by playing it three them in the deep end, and everybody had a
Looks a little different!’ Me, Chris and Chris times in a row. ball!” he laughs, crediting his time not working
This new angle to the band also sits well
with Koenig’s personality. Often wearing
the derided get-up of socks and sandals on
stage, shitposting online and hosting Time

April/May 2024 | Rolling Stone | 91

 Vampire Weekend

as having equal importance to the finished time of a total eclipse. Koenig was told about the

“I can think
album as the logged studio hours. incoming event by a friend seven years ago, and
Sonically, this freedom can be felt all over the date stuck in his mind immediately: it will be
Only God Was Above Us. The album traverses his 40th birthday.
every era of Vampire Weekend — the major key
joy of their earliest work, the dark and muddy of many “We were talking to one of the promoters
about the show, and the guy said, ‘Wow, so
tones of Modern Vampires and the baggier
excess of Father of the Bride — and becomes times in my cool how it ties into the album!’ I remember
thinking at the time, ‘Ties into the album? It’s just

life where I
their definitive statement to date. Even when randomly my birthday? How does it tie in?’ He
singing about his cynical mind on ‘Classical’, said, ‘Only God Was Above Us! This big cosmic

very much
the joyous music lifts him out of the rut, as if his event will be happening right above the crowd!’ I
new enlightened self is talking to the younger, was like, ‘Damn, you’re right.’”
downtrodden Koenig. ‘Gen-X Cops’ is a punk- As with everything regarding Only God Was
infused track full of bluster, while the slowies
(‘The Surfer’, ‘Pravda’) still bring lightness. related to Above Us, it all just seems to fit. The album closes
with ‘Hope’, an eight-minute triumph (“It’s no

the ‘fuck
“We’ve always been called an indie band, and ‘Murder Most Foul’!” Ezra laughs of Bob Dylan’s
often an alternative band, but I just think we don’t 17-minute epic track) that presents the core of

the world’
have that much connection to what people think his new world view. “I hope you let it go,” he sings
of as being classically alternative,” he says of the over and over as its refrain, reflecting on a life
album’s sonic identity. “It was starting to seem being bogged down by suspicion and distrust and
more interesting to me to discover whether we
can still sound like Vampire Weekend with some, mentality” basking in the new way he’s found to live. He’s
already thinking about Vampire Weekend’s sixth
like, bigger, harder, more distorted moments. (and seventh) albums, but if it were the band’s
More ‘alternative’ moments, for lack of a better last ever song, it would sum it all up impeccably.

T
term.” Though punk has always been in the mix “Every five years of my life, I can look back
on some of their biggest hits (‘Cousins’, ‘Diane he title of the new album started as and say, ‘Well, that was defined by changes in
Young’), it feels more raw and unhinged here, a coincidence. Koenig had discovered this way, or I started to feel more like this,’” he
most notably on the runaway train that is ‘Gen-X a host of images taken in the 80s by says. “Have things changed in my life? Sure. Is
Cops’ and its wiry guitar line. photographer Steven Siegel, one of that always clearly reflected in the music? That’s
Though Koenig is still unpacking what the which particularly took his eye. In it, a man harder to say. You get the songs you get, you
album means to him — “I always wish you could reads a newspaper on a graffiti-strewn New York know? You could sit down and want to write
do the press for an album five years after it subway. The front-page headline reads: “ONLY about where you’re at in your life, but it doesn’t
comes out!” — he is keen on presenting it as GOD WAS ABOVE US.” always work out that way. With this album,
an interconnected addition to the Vampire “I knew that it should be the album cover, though, I do think there’s some sort of reflection
Weekend collection. “I look at the first album as and there is so much empty space on it for and some type of maturity.”
the first chapter of the same story, and I’m very text,” Koenig says. After trying and failing to He describes the journey from ‘Ice Cream
grateful that each album provides context. The find a suitable space to put the band’s name Piano’ to ‘Hope’ as “a journey from cynicism
older you get and the longer you stick around and a potential album title, he settled on leaving to optimism; from scepticism to faith,” and it’s
as a band, the more you’ll get different parts Vampire Weekend off the cover and lifting the borne out on an album that presents all sides. “I
of your fan base who are discovering different one single piece of text in the image for its title. think all those things are true, and I do feel like
albums for the first time. You’ll still get people “At first, it wasn’t that deep. I said, ‘Let’s just call that’s a journey I’ve been on. I can think of many
who stick [2008 film] Step Brothers on and hear it that.’” As time went on, the singer began to times in my life where I very much related to the
‘A-Punk’ for the first time and think, ‘Who’s increasingly view it as a “special” name and “the ‘fuck the world’ mentality, if only in the sense of
this?!’ That’ll probably always be our biggest perfect title for the songs”. Quite a while later, being continually disappointed by things beyond
song, but people are still discovering it. he finally thought to himself: ‘That’s a weird my control, and not recognising the extent to
“No matter what, as you grow older, things newspaper headline. I wonder what it’s about.’ which there was another way to live,” he reflects
change,” he reflects. “That’s what’s most The headline was printed in the New York as we wrap our time together. “That’s a lifelong
important. You roll with the punches, and you Daily News in April 1988, the day after a plane journey, and I don’t want to pretend I’m no
deal with change. You experience a different flying over Hawaii had its roof torn off in a longer disappointed by anything, but when I was
dimension of life, whether that’s fatherhood crash. In an interview after the event, a survivor young, I was the epitome of a cynical, rational,
or whether you never have kids. There’s just used the immortal words when recounting the pessimistic materialist. Being older now, all I
something about being on this ride together.” traumatic accident. “It’s a pretty poetic way to know is that I’m not that anymore.”
describe the roof being ripped off your plane!”
Koenig giggles.
On 8 April, Vampire Weekend will launch Only
God Was Above Us at a special outdoor show at
Austin, Texas’ Moody Amphitheatre at noon, the

92 | Rolling Stone | April/May 2024

Too mu
Too

BAND TOGETHER
(from left) Bardon
(Ben Rose), Fiona
(Freya Parks), Dante
(Levi Brown) and
Jeannie (Eve Austin)

94 // Rolling
94 Stone/ /February
Rolling Stone April/May
20242024
 ch
o young Peaky Blinders writer Steven Knight’s
latest creation This Town takes viewers
back to the Midlands of the 80s, telling
the story of a group of disenfranchised
young people for whom music is the
only way out
By Sophie Porter
© BBC

February 2024 / Rolling Stone / 95

In 1981,
Britain was
at crisis point
The naTion had entered the second year of While Peaky Blinders touched on similar themes people who come from a very particular kind
a recession which saw over 2.5 million people of community, working-class lives and social of place.
standing in line for the dole, and the threat of turbulence, This Town centres on the youth
miners’ walkouts and the IRA hunger strikes experience in an era much closer to Knight’s one of The four main characters and band
put maximum pressure on the newly instated heart. It features a group of characters he feels members is Dante Williams, an 18-year-old
Thatcher administration. Tensions were running he could have grown up with, who demonstrate college student and aspiring poet for whom
high, with Black and Asian communities tenacity in the face of violence and uncertainty. the adjec tive ‘ weird’ is thrown around
enduring an increase in racist attacks and Set primarily bet ween Coventry and frequently. Played by newcomer Levi Brown,
police harassment as the force exercised hefty Birmingham, This Town draws us into the world he is seemingly out of step with the rest of
misuse of stop-and-search powers. As a result, of an extended family and their wider network the world at a time when visual identity and
following April’s Brixton Uprising, that summer who are brought back together by the death of a alignment is vital, but he speaks with conviction
saw riots rage across the Midlands, Liverpool, key figure. It focuses on the paths of four young and integrity and comes to music as a means of
Leeds and Manchester. people as they collectively turn to music as a carrying his words.
This is the bleak landscape in which Peaky “lifeboat” and form a band. Getting famous is the Brown is joined by Peaky Blinders alumnus
Blinders creator Steven Knight has set This only option in the face of familial tension, their Jordan Bolger as his on-screen elder brother
Town, his latest love letter to the Midlands. only means of escaping the desolate destinies of Gregory Williams, a member of the Birmingham
Zulus (a gang associated with football
hooliganism) turned soldier. When we first meet
him in This Town, he’s returned to Chelmsley
TROUBLED TIMES Wood Estate on compassionate leave for the
(from left) Bardon, funeral. Having been stationed in Belfast during
Gregory (Bolger)
the height of the Troubles, a time characterised
and Dante
by the IRA hunger strikes, he is plagued with
trauma and survivors’ guilt.
We’re reminded further of the political and
social unrest that characterised the period just
after Gregory has come home. For his own
protection, Dante is not allowed out, for fear
of the trouble he might get into. “Dad keeps me
in,” Dante tells Gregory.
Ahead of the service, there’s a pivotal
moment between Dante and their father (played
by Nicholas Pinnock) in which he assures Dante
he’ll be “opening up the box… but just a lickle”.
His dad then proceeds to unveil one of his old
suits, a relic from his days as a “bad boy” in
Kingston, Jamaica. A sharp black pinstripe,
double-breasted, white sock, black shoe, black
tie, trilby hat ensemble, it is the epitome of the
logo of 2 Tone, one of the familiar music genres
© ROBERT VIGLASKY

of the early 80s. As Dante dresses in the suit

for the funeral, he comments that it doesn’t
even look like him. He looks like a Rudeboy
yet knows nothing of what that means — of its

96 / Rolling Stone / April/May 2024

 TH I S TOW N

MEAN STREETS
The series recreates
the social tensions
of the 80s

association with the working-class teens of the around talking about the peace movement, shipments of arms and bomb-making ingredients
60s, noted for listening to ska and for their about Vietnam or anything, he just was that in Coventry. It focuses on the premeditation of
reckless delinquency. person somehow. And as a consequence of that, their lives based on where they’re from, how they
The suit introduces Dante to the divisive everybody gravitated around him.” look, and their background. It’s a theme that still
territory that comes with aligning yourself with But at this point in the show, Dante is exposed feels current today.
a ‘tribe’ at a time when there were prominent to the consequences of his aesthetic when he “I think people are still facing that, 100 per
and easily identifiable factions of youth, each breaks his composure over a hat and ends up in cent,” says Bolger of that particular scene. For
of whom had an individual purpose, but all of a bar brawl. him, who was born in Coventry, the script
whom were frustrated, and all of whom believed “He’s a troubled young man, and he’s living in felt close to home, like it was written for him.
they were right. a very chaotic world,” explains Brown, putting He remembers Coventry as a “vibrant” place
“He [Dante] says when he puts on the hat he this lapse in cool down to the perceived naivety despite its lack of opportunities, a city where
feels like dancing. And I think dancing for him of the character, “Working-class kids just had to “you need to make choices and you need to
doesn’t just mean dancing to a song, it means grow up so quickly.” make the right choices,” which ultimately
living life and getting into trouble,” says Brown. Dante is frogmarched from the pub by prepared him for the rest of his life. He still
This moment is a purposeful one. Dante is Gregory, at which point a poignant conversation experiences negative reactions to his Coventry
not representative of any group, neither does — perhaps more akin to a desperate warning — upbringing to this day.
he champion any particular cause — except by begins between the siblings and their cousin, In This Town, the brothers’ means of a ‘way
accident, “and that’s the point,” Knight stresses, Bardon (played by Ben Rose), the son of an out’ are representative of the seemingly only
“just by accident”, he conforms to a look which active IRA Provo who launders red diesel to fund — extreme — options available to low-income
was current. Dante is a very one-off person. He youth, something which again doesn’t seem
to have changed all that much. “I think that’s
“He’s a troubled
doesn’t seek the suit as a means of fitting in with
the movement at large; instead “it happens to still kind of the struggles that the working-class
him”. Knight continues, “I think that I wanted young man living in community are faced with every day, every year.
him to represent the creative people who usually
create these movements. If you think of Bob a chaotic world” Each generation,” says Bolger. “You can make
money, but if you don’t have financial literacy
— Brown
© BBC

Dylan as an example, where he wasn’t going and guidance, then the money isn’t going to get

April/May 2024 / Rolling Stone / 97

 TH I S TOW N

work, having come up through the estates of

Birmingham himself.
“There are certain things that are illegal that
people do that everybody’s fine with, you know,
because they’re essential — you have to do those
illegal things,” he says. “And so, the law doesn’t
match the morality of yourself and everybody
around you. You know, you’ve got a different law.”
Bolger expands on the theme. “When you
look at the working-class experience, there are
some things that are so normal to a working-
class community because it’s ‘you have to.’” He
praises Knight’s inclusion of these themes in the
series, and his writing in general, and how he
makes a point of humanising them, “because I
think it would be quite easy to go, ‘It’s wrong.
People shouldn’t do it.’ But when you have the
‘whys’ and the ‘hows’, it makes it way more
understandable.” The series addresses how
difficult it is to progress if you are born into these
kinds of circumstances, and how the need for
community is key to getting there. While the
middle class, or upper middle classes, have their
TAKE ME AWAY own sets of rules and are united and “know what
(above) Dante with they’re doing”, the series reflects the importance
Jeanie; (below)
of knowing your own structure as a way of being
music is an escape
for Dante strong in the face of adversity.
“It’s what Peaky’s about, and it’s what this
is about as well,” Knight explains, “it’s not
trying to accept a system of judgement where
‘isn’t it a shame’ or ‘isn’t it awful’ applies to
particular ways of being that just happened to
be different.”
But the working-class experience portrayed
in This Town isn’t purely bleak. In the early
production meetings, Knight was keen for
the council estates to look beautiful, like
somewhere that “everybody wants to live,” in
order to represent the subjective point of view
of the people who were involved and to share
an accurate history of the people who were
living there at the time. “It’s where I grew up
and it’s not awful,” he says, “it’s actually great.
It’s a laugh.” Beyond the grit, the violence
and the struggle, is vibrancy, creativity and
resourcefulness. These themes are key to the
progress of the lead characters, whether it’s
put into the things that can support you and background is a major theme throughout the Jeanie, a skinhead and band member, who
be sustainable. So, yeah, you hope that you get series and highlights Knight’s unrivalled ability records tapes at parties because she can’t afford
into sport, you hope you get into some kind of to tell stories which exist in the grey areas of to buy them, or Bardon offering up a “guitar, a
avenue that can take you away. And the military, life and which relay the complexities of living tin whistle and a big fucking Irish drum”, in order
I think, has been one that has probably been in a tumultuous landscape, where people for the cousins to write something that somewhat
there for a long time, for people who don’t have argue about who is right and who is wrong, resembles a song.
that many options.” both politically and within the realm of family Among all this is the theme of love in all its
Bolger then makes a comparison to those who allegiance, and the lengths they’ll go to in order various shades, which functions as both a means
grow up in affluent families. “If you grow up with to protect what is theirs. Knight validates the and a cause for the characters. “This thing is
a silver spoon, you grow up with people guiding search for community, identity and belonging, about people falling in love with each other,” says
you. You don’t have to have so much vision and and the things people do and the places they go Knight. “But also, when it gets gritty and nervous
scope and [to] look out for the dangers and in search of that, with real heart and humility and difficult, love is still in there somewhere and
the opportunities. But when you grow up with — even if these things sit outside the norm of it’s still doing its job.”
not being given so much, you have to do a lot what is seen as ‘right’. To quote a poignant line For Bolger, it’s central. “They’ve got the
with the little you have. You have to make your from the show, the things that are “illegal, not personal people that they’re living for, they’re
decisions smart.” inhuman”. This ties in with the working-class doing things for. And doing the things they
This concept of “destiny” based on your experience Knight often explores within his don’t want to do as well, whether it’s fighting

98 / Rolling Stone / April/May 2024

 addictions or fighting people. They’re doing it for “It was nothing to music is pivotal to This Town’s narrative, the

do with race. It was

someone,” he says. show isn’t a “forensic examination” of music
But in the case of Dante, love turns the focus history; rather, it has everything to do with the
away from life’s desolate reality. Knight talks to do with music” possibilities that music inspired.
about history as not standing back from the
painting but being in the painting, and the tunnel
— Knight My conversations with Bolger and Brown
inevitably turn to the legacy of the music of this
vision Dante develops when writing a song for a period, 2 Tone in particular, and the show’s
girl he likes is a truly honest rendition of what resonance with the modern viewer. “I think it’s
life would have been like for young people at that was just people who were from Birmingham going to be quite nice for people at this point
time. The naivety of the teenager is equal to a and Coventry, from the same estates, the same in time where there are so many pressures in
kind of resilience. Brown says, “There was a lot of places, who liked the same music. So, they so many different ways to look back at a sort
noise, and I think the naivety is… Dante is aware naturally got together and listened to the same of slightly simpler time that wasn’t so long ago
of all that, but I think he just chooses to ignore it. music. When ska first came, it was the music where something so simple as music and a love
To do your own thing as a teenager or as a young that skinheads were listening to, and it was the of music brought people together who were very
person is terrifying.” music that young Black people were listening divided before that point, and to just sort of look
to, and there was that thing — that music united at it and go, ‘It is possible and it is possible in this
Fast-Forward to 2024, then, and the politics them.” He recalls vividly that these conversations era. We’re not so far from this right now.’ So, it
of today feel hauntingly similar to the state of didn’t happen deliberately, but that it was just gives some hope,” says Bolger.
this country in 1981 and the preceding years. people not doing something stupid, “which was Brown ruminates on this notion too, with both
In a post-everything Britain — Brexit, the to identify each other according to race. It was actors recalling their experiences more recently
pandemic, Trump, Black Lives Matter — the the abstinence of that stupidity. And that’s what of music operating as a unifying force. Whether
population sits on a sliding scale of apathy and I think was so remarkable about it.” that’s at Northern Soul nights for Bolger, or a
rage, demoralised by 14 years of Tory rule, The soundtrack of the series encompasses a Kendrick Lamar gig for Brown, in both instances a
and the rise once more of far-right ideologies. fairly broad mix of genres and styles, touching collective act of dancing and singing has brought
Demonstrations blaze across the country as a on ska, reggae, 2 Tone, new wave and punk, a commonality between a breadth of different
result of Israel’s ongoing assault on Palestine, including prominent artists and bands of that people, from different places, at different points
the cost of living crisis is crippling families, and era. (Despite the title of the drama and its in their lives.
anti-immigration rhetoric is fanning the flames of similarity to the opening lyric of The Specials’ “Maybe there will be something that comes out
division, all of which marks the beginning of an 1981 hit ‘Ghost Town’, it does not feature.) The that just kind of makes everyone go, ‘Oh my God.
incredibly tense election year. tracks chosen perfectly capture the zeitgeist of Like, you can’t not like this. This is something
Rather than hitting our screens as a the time and provide the landscape in which that is speaking for us.’ And I do think we’re in a
mere object of retro fascination, This Town we find our cast. They mark the peak of a youth time now where maybe one song could do that or
simultaneously offers poignant reminders and movement and its commentary which inspired maybe a new genre will be born out of it. But I
a glimmer of hope in the form of music and the hope in the form of community and of music don’t know… you never know with music. You
band at the centre of the action. While Knight as an ‘out’ — themes which lie at the very heart never know,” Brown muses. “And that’s why it’s
doesn’t ever write with an agenda, he describes of This Town. While Knight makes it clear that so bloody great.”
today’s world as “difficult and a little bit bleak”.
He talks about hope and its usual source coming
from young people, but how he doesn’t feel that
right now. “You feel that division and people EXIT STRATEGY
separating themselves and deciding that they’re Gregory has tried to
this or they’re that, and the problem is that rewrite his fate by
the idea of coming together is now corny or becoming a soldier
sentimental. But the point is, a show like this is
suggesting that the thing that can possibly be a
trigger for getting rid of that is music.”
It is through music that we are shown that
despite the racial tensions of that time — and this
— harmony is possible. Its central characters,
Dante and Gregory, are both Black, their dad is
from Jamaica, and their mum is from Coventry,
while their cousin is Irish — but all that, as Knight
points out, is irrelevant. “It was nothing to do
with race. It was to do with music.”
He illustrates the point with his own personal
experience. In 1981, Knight was in his early
twenties. While it was a time of social upheaval,
for him that period was about Birmingham City
football matches (“which we’d probably lost”),
followed by a trip to the pub, where, inevitably,
a lot of young people would be causing trouble,
but there would be this music which seemed “to
fit as if it was designed for that moment”.
© BBC

He recalls how music acted as a unifier: “It

April/May 2024 / Rolling Stone / 99

 Kristen
Stewart

Uncensored

After more than two decades in the spotlight,

Stewart knows who she is — and what she wants
BY ALEX MORRIS
PHOTOGRAPHY BY COLLIER SCHORR
GUTTER PHOTO CREDIT

APRIL/MAY 2024 ROLLING STONE 101

Kristen
such things as Twilight-branded blow dryers, and
momentarily made Stewart the highest-paid
actress in the world, there was the transition once
and (mostly) for all to art-house indies — which
she’d been making in between all those Twilight

Stewart
instalments, sometimes shooting three or four
movies a year. There was Clouds of Sils Maria,
for which she turned down the part of the starlet
in favour of the slightly grubby assistant, and
proceeded to win a César (the French equivalent
of the Oscar), the only American woman to have
done so. There was Spencer, which earned her an

is strong
Oscar nomination for Best Actress for so artfully
crawling out of her own skin. After we hung out,
she was headed to Park City, Utah, where she was
being honoured with a Visionary Award while
premiering her 11th and 12th Sundance films —
Love Lies Bleeding as well as Love Me, a post-
apocalyptic romance in which she plays a buoy

as fuck,
to Steven Yeun’s satellite (“Basically, the internet
— the knowable universe — is contained in this
machinery, and they start trying to figure out how
to date,” she explains). “We were starting to film,
and it can be a very tense scene,” Yeun tells me of
working with Stewart on such an unconventional
project. “She just put her hand on my shoulder
and was like, ‘Hey, I like you.’ And that just melted
away all the brain fog. She’s very deep and cool
that way.”
That depth and cool have long made Stewart
a go-to choice for countercultural roles, women
and I do not mean this metaphorically. I am not, a chain we’d started to try to figure out what to who stand out because they are at a remove from
for instance, talking about any experience from do on our second day together, though the back- whatever world envelops them. But they are also
her past that she has quote-unquote risen above, and-forth had quickly devolved (evolved?) into a the qualities behind Stewart’s ability to make
like that time she was in those vampire-werewolf series of book and article recommendations and characters seem countercultural by virtue of the
movies and dubbed the World’s Most Hated Stewart’s confession that, when it comes to these fact that she is playing them, bringing a reserve
Actress because she did not appear sufficiently types of interviews, “the disco anxiety is real.” and restraint that might seem like underkill in
stoked to sit in a room full of journalists and discuss Eventually, she invites me along to what she’d a franchise in which she has to speak, out loud,
making out with her co-stars. Or the time she planned to do anyway that afternoon: kickbox with lines like “Hello, biceps!” but that scintillates
was photographed kissing her much older (and her trainer Rashad. We are ostensibly meeting so in more nuanced fare. “She understands how
married) Snow White and the Huntsman director, she can promote Love Lies Bleeding, a romantic people cover, and she is able to play that, which
and, due to the horror this engendered, was thriller directed by Rose Glass, in which Stewart makes her work so interesting and different,” says
banished from the sequel. I am not talking about plays a gym manager lusting after a bodybuilder Jodie Foster, who began shooting Panic Room with
the bravery it took to play Joan Jett in front of Joan (played by Katy O’Brian) who, as Stewart describes Stewart when she was 10. “I remember just being
Jett. Or the bravery it took to play Princess Diana it, “comes in and shakes up the Coke can, but it in awe of this kid.”
in front of the entire moviegoing world. Or the fucking explodes and everyone gets messy” By the time I arrive at her house, Stewart, now
bravery it took to come out on SNL in the form of (“messy” being the quaintest way possible to 33, has been up for many hours. There was a spell
a snappy retort to the mean tweets of a demented describe the bloody, sweaty, id-driven hellscape when she had “a very fucked-up relationship with
reality-show host turned president. In other words, that follows). In this context, kickboxing is the sort sleep”, but now she goes to bed early and rises
I am not talking about “strength” as the gold-star of cliché, movie-promotion-adjacent thing Stewart early, waking up to work with fiancée Dylan Meyer
descriptor given to famous women who don’t would usually refuse to do, and therefore, we on one of the many projects being spearheaded
crumble beneath the other labels society lobs at figured, the most subversive thing she could do. by Nevermind, the production company the two
them. No. I am talking, quite literally, about Kristen “Less talk, more rock,” she advised. founded with producer Maggie McLean in 2023.
Stewart’s biceps. By now, it’s pretty well established that (Stewart tells me that it wasn’t named after the
OK, let me back up. It’s an early afternoon in “subversive” is Stewart’s thing. Imagine her, Nirvana album per se, but that they do share the
January. We’re on a large deck perched neatly on aged 17, refusing to play Bella Swan in the perky, band’s urge to “somehow slip in and fuck shit
a hillside of Los Feliz, with a commanding view bright-eyed manner the adults all had in mind, up for the better”.) “Me and Dylan are writing
of tropical foliage. The weather has reverted to and choosing instead to mope around like she something, so the first three hours, we treasure
that bland meteorological perfection endemic to was actually in love with an undead person. (“The them. Our brains are just working well at that
Los Angeles, despite a morning that was topsy- studio was trying to make a movie for kids. They time,” Stewart says. “When she moved into this
turvy, bringing down a small tree in Stewart’s yard. didn’t want what actually was the book. When house, I had no curtains, three forks, and I never
“Wtf kinda crazy witch energy you bring to LA?!!” the fuck are [Bella and Edward] smiling, ever?”) drank coffee, and I was like, ‘I don’t sleep.’ She’s
read an email waiting in my inbox when I awoke. Then, having spent five years on a franchise that like, ‘In the morning, you drink coffee and you
“It’s crazy out there!” It was the latest message in earned more than $3.5 billion worldwide, spawned work, and you’re alive, and you’re awake, and

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then at night you close the curtains.’ In retrospect, fucking house.” During the pandemic, Stewart Spencer. The morning after, having not slept a wink
it was so obvious.” graffitied the word “MAINLY” underneath in all (“We were really Englanding out”), she came down
When Stewart leads me outside, Meyer is caps. “Anyway,” she continues, shrugging, “just to to the lobby of her swanky “press junket” hotel for
already on the deck, limbering up in a white New contextualize that: fuck that guy.” a meeting with director Rose Glass, whose debut
Order T-shirt while Rashad arranges yoga mats Stewart bought the house about 12 years ago, film, Saint Maud — a psychological fever dream
and free weights. Soon Stewart has a playlist going, as a place to “go hide in” during a breakup with about religious obsession — Stewart had loved.
and Rashad is having us “separate our shoulder Robert Pattinson, back when they were both They sat at a table off to one side. They sipped tea.
blades and engage our core” to the croons of having to ride around in the trunks of cars to try Glass explained that her takeaway of what people
Vivien Goldman as Stewart’s black rescue mutt, to thwart the prying paparazzi. In a theoretical wanted from her next was a film about a strong
Cole, meanders between the mats. We stretch. way, she understands the interest people still have woman, a strong lead character.
We shadowbox. Then comes the moment Stewart in that relationship — she really does — but as she’ll “What does that mean?” Stewart asks now,
had warned me about: the chin-up competition later tell me: “Rob and I can’t just keep talking narrowing her eyes. “It’s bullshit. It means
on a free-standing contraption set up on the deck. about that shit, because it’s fucking weird. It’s like that we’re not actually letting women define
I do approximately zero. Meyer manages several. if someone kept asking you — I mean for literally themselves. It’s the assumption that we need
Stewart does chin-up after chin-up after chin-up, decades — ‘But senior year in high school?’ You’re to be empowered by the people deciding who
then switches to a different grip and does some like, ‘Fucking A, man! I don’t know!’” gets to have perspective, that we have to provide
more, as we all look on admiringly. Whatever her reserve on film, today Stewart something aspirational. It’s the lowest-hanging
“You should know that Kristen is good at has an excitable, spring-loaded quality. Soon fruit there is.” Glass told her that she had figured
everything. It’s both inspiring but also annoying,” after we begin talking, she wanders off, without out a way to subvert that expectation: she had
Meyer says to me quietly without a hint of actual taken the note literally. “She was like, ‘Strong girl?
annoyance. Bodybuilding. Got it.’ Simple as that.”

“It was really fun

“Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!” Rashad screams. By the time she left the meeting, Stewart knew
“You’re strong as fuck, let’s go!” she would take the part that Glass had written with

to be allowed to
Stewart finally drops from the bar, panting. her in mind — the role of Lou, the gym manager,
She flashes that famous sideways grin, and who is butch and tough and closed like a fist,

I
have the little,
then glances towards the body pads: “Let’s get until the bodybuilder, Jackie, explodes her whole
in the ring.” world — but she didn’t officially sign on until she’d

dikey sister
returned to LA and read the script. “I had some
t had been a subversion of the idea of a friends over for dinner when I got the message,”

be the main
“strong woman” that led Stewart to Love says Glass of receiving the news. “I think I was a
Lies Bleeding, she’d told me a few weeks bit drunk already. I just remember there being lots

protagonist”
earlier, sitting in her living room on a of very jubilant shouting and excited jumping up
black leather sofa under large metal letters and down.”
that spell out “ASS”. This afternoon, it is Afterwards, Stewart finished the campaign
witchy raining, and the view out of the expected of Oscar-nominated actors (“It becomes
glass doors barely goes past the deck, where in like you’re teaching a curriculum on your movie”)
addition to the pull-up stand, there is a claw- preamble, to change from black leather and then flew to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where
foot bathtub Stewart had moved from one of the workman’s shoes into sneakers (“I’m a soft-shoe Love Lies Bleeding would film, showing up at Glass’s
bathrooms and hooked up outside (“It breaks guy. I went somewhere today and got dressed or house with a stylist to lay waste to Diana’s blonde
a lot, but it’s really fucking nice to take a bath whatever, but now I’m like, ‘Why the fuck am I hair, even grabbing the scissors at the end to make
out there”). Unimposing from the outside, the in these big shoes?’”). A few minutes later, she it look like Lou had cut her mullet herself. “Once I
house slopes down the hillside elegantly, but wanders off again (“She just keeps walking away cut my hair, I was like, ‘See you, forever,’” Stewart
is haphazardly furnished and a little unkempt. from me,” she narrates from my perspective), and says of leaving Spencer behind.
Across from the sunken living room — where a returns from the biohazard fridge with two Coors Lou was a very different story — a character
white plastic mannequin perches on a bench Lights. “You can have a beer if you want,” she whose seedy, pumped-up world could not have
laid out with stacks of Nevermind scripts and announces. “I’m going to have one.” been more different from Princess Diana’s gilded
papers — there is a wall of books to one side We crack open the cans. She returns to the cage, whose sex scenes were about female pleasure
(Mary Shelley, Jack Kerouac, Kim Gordon, Kathy sofa. She wears a worn, black T-shirt with holes and female bodies alone, who wasn’t aspirational
Acker) and a sort of games room to the other, in both armpits, baggy black jeans and chipped or going on some journey of self-discovery, and
complete with an orange-topped pool table, a black nail polish. Her mullet is pulled into a short who was not at all the type of person about whom
Playboy pinball machine, a row of metal lockers, ponytail at the back of her head, dark strands movies are generally made. “It was really fucking
and a refrigerator with a large orange biohazard escaping errantly. fun to be allowed to have the little, dikey sister be
sticker on the door. A room off the kitchen boasts “Do you already know what you’re—” she stops the main protagonist in a movie,” Stewart says.
a crumbling sofa, a drum kit and a collection of herself. “I know actors are defensive. I don’t mean “That’s never the main character in a movie. That’s
acoustic and electric guitars. Near the stairs, this, like, ‘Do you already know what you’re going never the one that you want to fuck. I mean, that’s
water stains mark the ceiling, and the words “life to write?’ But are you already — I don’t know — a the one some people do, but not the one that you
is beautiful” are graffitied in bright-red paint. little outlined or something?” are prescribed to want to fuck.”
“Just so you know, that ‘life is beautiful’ thing No, I tell her. We only just met. How could I As an openly gay movie star — “and there
— do you know Mr Brainwash?” Stewart motions know what the contours of the story would be? aren’t that many openly gay movie stars” —
wryly to the graffitied wall. “He came over with “OK, cool.” She leans towards me, legs wide and it felt personal in a way Stewart hadn’t quite
a friend of mine and did this, and I was like, ‘So, elbows on her knees. “We’ll figure something out.” expected: a queer film that didn’t revolve around
I know that I do sort of live in a frat house, but There’s a lot to say about Love Lies Bleeding, so the “coming out” narrative, and in which the
that is psychotic.’ Do you know what I mean? To we might as well start there. And here’s how that queerness was less a plot point than a vibe.
think that you could just do that to someone’s went: Stewart was in London for the premiere of She has long talked about roles as not a form

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saw the Porsche commercial and had his people

track her down, and she booked Panic Room. “I
mean, everybody said at the time, ‘Look, if this
kid wants to continue to do this, she’s absolutely
got the acumen; she’s got the sensitivity,’”
Fincher tells me. “But when you’re standing
next to Jodie Foster, and the question for a 10- or
11-year-old is ‘What do you want to do with the
rest of your life?’ — you know, Jodie’s extremely
protective of people who are not capable of
making those decisions: ‘She doesn’t need to
think about that. She needs to think about what
we’re doing before lunch.’”
Anyway, there was only so much Foster could
do: when shit hit the fan for Stewart, career
prospects had nothing to do with it. Puberty did.
“It’s as soon as I started to want to have sex,”
Stewart specifies of the moment when she went
from being like “everything’s fucking gravy” to
suddenly feeling like “I can’t find the words and
I want my face to be on the back of my head
instead of the front.” She takes another gulp of
Coors: “Puberty is a real fucker.”
There are a few core memories here: the
time she went to school with her legs unshaved
and someone was like, “Eeeewwww”; the time
she accidentally hit a friend in the nuts, and he
howled “Oh, you fucking man!”; the way guys
treated her girlie friend Britni vis-à-vis the way
they treated her. “I was immediately aware that
these guys who I was friends with saw me as
not fuckable,” she says. “My sexuality is totally
fluid. I’m all over the fucking map — and I think
I was then. But I also really wanted to be normal
and hot, so I was like, ‘Cool. I’m going to do
everything I can to try and fucking figure out how
to look like a girl and get these guys to like me.’
That’s it. It’s totally a normal story.” Except that
it didn’t play out normally because by then she
was well on her way to filming movies like Into
the Wild and Adventureland and — as part of her
of escapism, but rather a means of exploring Stewart grew up in the Los Angeles suburb of actual Twilight audition, believe it or not — rolling
different facets of her identity — imagining who Woodland Hills. Her dad was a stage manager who around with Pattinson on director Catherine
she might be if her “nature” had been exposed to worked on shows like the Oscars and Fear Factor, Hardwicke’s own bed.
an entirely different “nurture”. But playing Lou and when Stewart went to work with him, she Which means that while Stewart was still
felt like a return to her “first setting”, she tells hated it — all the rushing around and commotion figuring out who she was and what being
me. “It is a really weird, kind of moving return to (“I would hide in the engineers’ room and play bass “fuckable” meant to her, the world was busy
form in some way. Kind of like who you are when with them”). Her mum was a script supervisor who schooling her on both fronts. She couldn’t leave
you’re 11 — physically, the clothes you choose to worked on movies like Mortal Kombat and Little the house without the male gaze following her in
wear — before you’ve just been pummelled by Giants, and when Stewart went to work with her, the form of TMZ photographers, couldn’t arrange
male expectation.” she loved it — the quiet and stillness, the feeling of her face without becoming the cultural signifier
She takes a swig of beer and leans back into everyone working together to suspend some fragile of every single woman who’s ever been told,
the sofa. “I never have felt like I have performed bubble of make-believe. When she was eight, and “You’re so much prettier when you smile.” Plus,
a femininity in order to reap its benefits in a way because she had noticed acting was the only job it was the noughties (“The nineties and the early
that felt like a lie,” she continues. “I’m very fluid, kids could have that allowed them to miss school, 2000s were really horrific for young women.
and I’ve never felt like, ‘Oh, wow, I was doing she asked her mum to take her to an audition Don’t you feel that way?”). Her anxiety got so
this lie for a long time in order to get jobs.’ That seminar, one of those one-stop shops where you get bad that she’d lie on bathroom floors, unable
would be wrong. I have had a good time playing headshots and the promise of being connected to to unclench her fists — so bad, at one point she
with all of the tonal qualities. But there’s so much some agents if you don’t suck too much. Stewart — had to be hospitalised (“They were like, ‘She’s
room for success when you choose the girlie one. whose drama experience up to that point consisted dehydrated.’ I was like, ‘I’m not dehydrated.
There’s no room for this other one.” of reenacting scenes from Titanic on the jungle gym I’m fucking flipping out.’ They gave me an IV
at school — found that she didn’t. and a mild sedative, and I started calming down
OK, let me bacK up again. Because nurture does She booked a Porsche commercial. Then she and my hands started opening up, because you
matter, here are some broad strokes. booked The Safety of Objects. Then David Fincher fucking atrophy”).

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There was a span of years when she couldn’t can see the evolution from herself to them, how script to Yuknavitch, out loud, in the writer’s
enter a room without scoping out the exits, when she has an awareness of gender-conformity that living room. Then she cast Imogen Poots to play
she needed to know where a bathroom was at all feels very “millennial” compared with what’s on Yuknavitch. Then she went looking for money
times (“I was always like, ‘Who knows? I could offer now. “I look at these kiddos that are so chilling to make the actual movie, which proved to be
spontaneously combust in a puddle of puke right on all of those fronts, and can have [gender] be like damn near impossible because, as it turns out,
now’”). There was that period when she couldn’t an accessory, can actually play with the novelty of female shame and female rage and female art
sleep, and then got addicted to not sleeping, that — have [femininity] one day, not have it the and female-on-female BDSM are topics that are
thought she might die from not sleeping, but then, next.” It’s a psychological fluidity Stewart covets: not seen to lend themselves to box-office gold.
somehow, didn’t. “I loved to be sad and shit,” “I’m so aware of these things.” Which only underscored how every single fucking
she tells me. “Oh my God. I made a complete art And so she did what she could: she leaned into thing in the book was true.
project out of it: my whole life.” that awareness. She began reading mainly female We’d been having a fairly chill time up until this
Of course, all of that was a long time ago. Stewart writers (“I was really obsessed with male writers. point, but suddenly Stewart is standing up, pacing
wanders over to the fridge and gets us another I’ve only recently been like, ‘What the fuck are they back and forth in front of the bookshelf. She knows
round. Here’s the thing: she’s grown up. That’s doing?’”). She began boning up on gender theory, her screenplay is “radical in a million ways”. She
not who she is now. But also, in a way, it kind of giving herself the college education that, in another knows she’s never directed The Tree of Life. But she
is. As a queer woman in the public eye, she’s had life, she might have had. She began thinking of also knows the misogyny embedded in the system
occasion to think about identity, and what it all female bodies not just physically and sexually, but and that she could make something subversive
means. She’s considered the arc of things. “And and beautiful and true if only she were given the
it goes: Jodie [Foster], me, boygenius,” she says, chance. “And it makes me fucking angry. And not

“I loved to be
plainly, of the spots she imagines they all hold on in a way that’s like, ‘I’ve been doing this for so long,
the queer-celebrity continuum. “I’m in the middle. and so therefore I deserve it.’ It’s really more like,

sad and shit. Oh

Do you know what I mean? Jodie had such a hard ‘If I were a man, you would fucking believe me!’”
time [as a gay actor], and I’m not speaking for her Stewart’s voice has risen to the point that

my God. I made
— I am objectively analysing the time and place in she is screaming now, over there by the books.
which she was being her, and that is not easy — I Eventually, she strides to the pool table and begins

a complete art
would say fucking near-impossible if you wanted racking the balls.
to continue doing what you love. “Do you want to play a game of pool?” she asks.

project out of it:

“For me, it wasn’t a problem,” she continues. “It’s the party trick of any fledgling lesbian.” It may
“But that’s probably because of the sort of space be worth mentioning that we are not entirely sober

my whole life”
that I inhabit and the parts that I’m attracted to at this point. Outside the window, it’s too dark to
and the filmmakers that are attracted to me and tell if it’s still raining.

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the audience that exists for those movies. Had Stewart chalks a cue and then leans over the
I really wanted to carve out more commercial table and breaks. It’s soon clear that she’s the
space and maintain that, I don’t know if that better player: when she sinks a ball, it’s swift and
would’ve worked.” also metaphorically (“The coolest fucking part of decisive. Still, she’s distracted by the conversation.
Still, she points out that, for her, coming out was us is that we have this ever-present and unclosable Have I read any Jeanette Winterson? Or Kate
not a painstaking process. She was “very physically opening, and we’re walking around with it all the Zambreno? What about Genesis P-Orridge’s
out with my body” long before she publicly came time, and we sort of pretend like it’s not there, but memoir? That’s an extreme experience! Do I
out on SNL. And even that was a “very shoot-from- it’s our greatest strength”). She began to interrogate realise that we are setting ourselves up for failure
the-hip moment”, she says. “It did not feel like the “violence of the dynamic” when it comes to here, with this whole cover-story thing? That it’s
this bloodletting.” Nor was it something she’d gender, whether someone has had a #MeToo impossible to pin down any moment in time, any
planned in advance. She was merely sitting with moment or not (she says that she hasn’t). “The fixed identity? Still, she wants the cover image
the SNL writers, going, “This is the most boring violence and the shame that women internalise and to send a clear message: hyper-sexualised, left
monologue ever. What are we going to do? What then use as triggers for pleasure? We can’t get away of andro, and flipping the gender script. “If I got
the fuck?” when someone brought up Trump’s from it,” she says. “To think that we know what we through the entire Twilight series without ever
tweets about her. “He’s mad at me for cheating want in a way that’s remotely divorced from the doing a Rolling Stone US cover, it’s because the
on my boyfriend?” she’d retorted. “Little does patriarchy is impossible. We will never. And I’m so boys were the sex symbols,” she points out. “Now,
he know…” As soon as the words were out of much more interested in leaning into that versus I want to do the gayest fucking thing you’ve ever
her mouth, she knew she’d use them. (As for her away.” In other words, she began, as she puts it, seen in your life. If I could grow a little moustache,
thoughts on Trump? “Of course he had to weigh “Vagina Monologue-ing all over the place.” if I could grow a fucking happy trail and unbutton
in on my tarring and feathering. It’s like, ‘What is Some years back, Stewart read a memoir my pants, I would. Guys — I’m sorry — but their
this 20-year-old who has no idea about life doing to that seemed to magically spew onto the page fucking pubes are shoved in my face constantly,
this man?’” And: “He’s such a little baby.” And also: all that was cohering in her mind. Before she’d and I’m like, ‘Ummmm, bring it in.’”
“Fuck you, bitch!”). even finished The Chronology of Water, she Apropos to that, she won’t give up on
She says that Foster has been a mentor to her — a emailed its author, Lidia Yuknavitch, asking if Chronology, she wants me to know. She’s been
number she will keep in her phone always, even if she could adapt her story, a cult favourite about talking about it with journalists for years — to the
they aren’t consistently in touch — and she’s aware female shame and female rage and female art point that it’s getting embarrassing — but it’s now
that her own openness about her queerness has and female-on-female BDSM and a bunch of her only plan for the future. She’ll keep writing
likely been a model for others. But she also knows other things “so taboo it’s almost horny”. It things with Meyer, keep looking for other stories
how much the needle has kept moving, at least in took Stewart years to complete the screenplay, they could tell that she feels aren’t being told, but
the “specialised little nook” of the world where which she refers to as a “living document”. she’s not taking other parts; the next movie she
she resides. She directed boygenius’s The Film — a For several weeks while she was working on films she wants to be her own.
14-minute music video that culminates in the three it, she camped in a van outside Yuknavitch’s I make a bank shot, and she looks at me with
musicians making out with one another — and she Pacific Northwest home. Then she read the mock horror: “Now get the fuck out of my house.”

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y the time we plonk ourselves real life, which — let’s be honest — is what we all do, family’s going to look like, but there’s no fucking
back down in her living room a few all the time: “We make choices every fucking day way that I don’t start acquiring kids,” Stewart told
weeks later, Stewart seems more about who we’re going to be. Not in a controlling me during our first meeting. “And also, ideally
relaxed, and not just from the way, but just in a way that acknowledges, ‘This is at some point soon I go, ‘I want to have a kid.’ I
endorphins released by her millions who I am. It’s the easiest one. It’s the one that’s the really want that to happen.” Having watched that
of chin-ups. About a week before most comfortable. It’s the one I’ve chosen.’” desire solidify in so many of their friends, she and
our first meeting, she’d travelled to But also — and bear with her here; she knows Meyer have started making preparations for how
Latvia to location-scout for Chronology, and had she’s about to contradict herself — she’s aware they might go about getting pregnant, and have
been astounded by the beauty and diversity of that there can be something fundamental to who discussed carrying each other’s embryos. “I’m not
the landscape — beaches that looked like Florida we are that can be lost and hard to retrieve. “I feel scared of being pregnant. I’m not scared of having
just a few miles from forests that looked like the like I’m just getting back to that 11-year-old,” she a kid,” Stewart tells me. “But I’m so fucking scared
Pacific Northwest. She’d now calculated that the says. “It does take kind of a long period of growing of childbirth, it’s crazy. Have you ever been too on
movie could be shot there for a fraction of the up in order to get back to who you were when you drugs where you’ve suddenly needed to be on your
cost, and though it was weird for her to consider were a little guy.” She knows these things “might hands and knees?” she asks of that sensation of
making a movie outside of the Hollywood system, seem like a contradiction, like I’m presenting your body operating outside your control. “I hate
she was coming around to the idea. With these set something that doesn’t play well together.” She that. I mean, I smoke a lot of weed — I obviously
pieces, she felt she could keep the project small balks at the concept of “authenticity” (“Are you self-medicate — but I don’t like hard drugs. And I’ve
and intimate, could suspend that fragile bubble of fucking kidding me? We are all so malleable”). tried — a lot. I just can’t deal.” Still, the thought of
make-believe. “I don’t want 80 people on set,” she But she still feels like maybe there’s something carrying a pregnancy is so “radical” that she’d like
says. “If I see a truck, I’ll lose my fucking mind.” essential that you feel the loss of when it’s denied, to think she could be up for facing that fear.
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Over the years, Stewart’s most intimate something that can help you grow into who you Right now, though, she can’t wrap her head
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relationships have tended to be with people she around creating anything — or anyone — before
views as creative partners, which, she admits, has Chronology. She hopes that by March she’s in
Latvia shooting — she’d love to get there in time
“Now, I want to
“not been great for having relationships”. When
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it comes to Meyer, she says, “we don’t have that to capture some scenes of snow. She shows me
the locations deck she put together, then asks if I
do the gayest
separation. I found the right person because I can
be so obsessive about what I do. And luckily my want to see the sizzle, then spends several minutes
fumbling with a remote control (“You know when
fucking thing
girlfriend, my partner, we are into the same shit.
We have taken the things that we’re spending our you’re too fucked up and you’re trying to get music
to play? This is like that”). Finally, she gets the
you’ve ever seen
time on and interlocked them, and we’re so much
fucking smarter and stronger together. And you’re video going, the plot approximated in pastiche,
the tone strange and dark and exuberant. This
in your life”
just like, ‘Fuck, that is the best.’”
The two met on the set of American Ultra, is who she is, is what she’s trying to say; she just
connected immediately (“in a way where you aren’t wants to be able to say it. Less talk, more rock.
sure if you want to fuck or be like, ‘Dude, let’s think So I turn my tape recorder off. We swill some
of a handshake’”), and then unconnected immedi- more Coors. The Los Feliz skyline darkens.
ately because of other romantic entanglements once were and stick that out, because “it’s boring Eventually, Meyer texts to see what’s up, and we
(“We were both so wrapped up in fucking other to not. It is unevolved to not. Now, I’m actually head to a dive bar a few minutes down the road
things, literally”). Six years later, they ran into each creating a home where I’m an adult and a person.” where we sit at a booth and eat chicken wings and
other again. Stewart asked why they hadn’t stayed A few years back, Stewart and Meyer moved where not a single person approaches the table
in touch. Meyer said she’d emailed. Stewart scoffed into a house down the road, keeping this one to except the woman who takes our order. Stewart
and then — oops — pulled up all the messages she’d use as the offices of Nevermind and as a landing sits close to Meyer, who does most of the talking
ghosted. “It was my fault, for sure,” she says. “But pad for friends going through breakups or other (about books, about writing, about how these are
then I very much made this [relationship] happen. hard times, as Stewart was when she bought it the best wings in Los Angeles to such an extent
I was intense, because I was just positive.” (she refers to it as the “Heartbreak Hotel”, adding that “I’m not interested in other wings anymore”).
Which, she found, was an interesting place that it’s otherwise “crazy to have a secondary Periodically, Stewart reaches out to gently touch
to be. For so much of her adulthood, Stewart mansion down the street from your house”). Meyer’s neck. At one point, they go outside to split
had felt unsettled. Years had been spent “really Since Meyer proposed in 2021, they’ve thrown the joint that’s been hanging out behind Stewart’s
white-knuckling life and getting off on the highs around ideas of how they want to get married, ear and return smiling and chummy. When the
and lows of things” and running headlong into once joking (or half-joking? Or not joking?) that wings are done and the beers are finished, I call a
“fucking horrific relationships” and leaning into they wanted Guy Fieri to officiate. Since then, car, and they wait outside with me until it arrives.
experiences that were “emotionally psychotropic” they’ve realised that their main focus needs to be They give good hugs, both of them.
because you can then “put so much into your art”. their two passion projects — Stewart’s Chronology Before we part ways for the final time, Stewart
And art had come out of it, art she’d sometimes and Meyer’s The Wrong Girls, in which Stewart will asks me again if I know what I’ll write about her,
even been proud of, art where she’s been able to star and which she describes as “a stoner buddy which of course I don’t. She’s right: we’ve set
“deposit desire in people” and make her feelings comedy about two slacker girls coming of age”. ourselves up for failure with this whole cover-story
their feelings — and, honestly, what’s fucking It’s the one movie that Stewart says that she would thing. Identity is so fucking malleable, a series of
better than that? “There was never a moment do if it got greenlit before Chronology. With all that choices made over and over again in service to
where I was like, ‘Man, what am I doing with the percolating, Stewart explains, “we don’t have it something elusive. It can take so much strength to
time that I have on this Earth?’” she says. “I don’t in us to have a big wedding. We’re probably just drown out all the noise and get to the point where
know what the fuck else I’d be doing. I love it.” going to do it soon. We just are busy trying to you know how to make those choices in a way that
And, look, it has been great to experience all make movies because they’re our babies.” feels true. So, yeah, I guess what I have to say is this:
these facets of herself, great to try them on and then Then again, they’ve been talking about the Kristen Stewart is strong as fuck — whatever the
figure out how she wanted to cast herself in her possibility of actual babies. “I don’t know what my fuck that means.

APRIL/MAY 2024 ROLLING STONE 113

 With 2022’s
spine-tingling debut
Unlearning, Glasgow
glam-pop collective
Walt Disco marked
themselves out as
one of the most
intriguing outfits on
the UK’s alternative
scene. On brilliant
follow-up The
Warping, however,
they’re shapeshifting
boldly into the band
they were always
meant to be…

BY SAM LAW

114 | Rolling Stone | April/May 2024

 Finlay

Jocelyn

T
here is no such thing as standing still. At the forefront of that conversation is McCarthy shrugs. “I guess that’s just the price
Not really. Walt Disco understand this personal change. Compared to Unlearning’s you pay to do all these amazing things that we’ve
better than most. disentanglement from societal norms and the done. It’s a form of therapy to talk about that
Breaking out on the eve of COVID, outside world, The Warping is inherently more bittersweetness, but ultimately we’re grateful
the Glaswegian collective could have been caught introverted. The title track, for instance, is a to be here.”
in the suffocating stasis of lockdown. Instead, they powerful exploration of gender dysphoria and Indeed, Walt Disco have plenty to be grateful for.
plotted a way forward, pouring empty, uncertain envy, which finds Si pondering and processing With Unlearning nominated for the Scottish Album
months into striking debut LP Unlearning. the emotions and insecurities that come with of the Year Award and Best Independent Album
Rather than building conservatively close to being trans, ultimately finding catharsis in at the AIM Awards, as well as their high-profile
home as life opened up again, they harnessed radical honesty. Dig deeper, though, and there support slots with acts like Simple Minds, Duran
that record’s momentum to get out and see the are profound ruminations on separation too; the Duran and Primal Scream, plus appearances at
world. And as technical difficulties threaten to distance that can open up when the changes you Glastonbury, Latitude and SXSW in the US, Walt
derail their homecoming at McChuills Bar when go through detach you from life events like the Disco have built a global following. Hollywood
we meet on a balmy Wednesday at the tail end death of a family pet or the sale of a childhood superstar and cult queer icon Tilda Swinton called
of Scottish summer, they just sit back and smile, home. The nursery-rhymed inflections of them her new favourite band. And as this feature
quietly assured that it’ll take more than dodgy ‘Black Chocolate’ tap into an almost-childlike goes to press, they’ll be on a continent-spanning
speakers to stop tonight’s sweaty soft launch for appreciation of the security of family, while ‘I European jaunt with English electronic icons
superb second album The Warping. Will Travel’ finds that same constant grounding Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD).
“It’s a record about change,” smiles ‘matriarch’ in a parent’s dog. While Unlearning was written and recorded
and vocalist Jocelyn Si, surrounded by bandmates “It’s definitely a reaction to our experience of in the claustrophobia of their own homes
Finlay McCarthy (synths), Lewis Carmichael life in a band,” continues co-songwriter Martin. and driven by the mainly electronic DIY tools
(guitar), Charlie Lock (bass) and Jack Martin On album one, being locked down shielded them at their disposal, The Warping is the result of
(drums) in the calm before the storm. “It’s about from the harsher realities of life on tour, which only transatlantic sessions from Los Angeles and
reacting to change, being afraid of change, made them hit harder this time. “I see the members Austin to London and Glasgow. Lead single
wanting things to change. Unlearning could be of this band far more than I see my friends or ‘Pearl’, for instance — a bleak portrait of an
seen as an album about unlearning habits and family. A lot of material here comes through the imagined future where Martin is living alone with
how we think about things in our lives. The lens of realisation that just because we’re away regret on Glasgow’s south side — is named after
Warping is about changing how we deal with doesn’t mean that things stay the same at home. the Pearl Street Co-Op in Austin where they first
those things moving forward.” They don’t wait for us to get back. Life goes on.” toyed with its composition on a grand piano and

116 | Rolling Stone | April/May 2024

 Charlie WALT
DISCO

Lewis
Jack

features a voice-note from when they returned as lost in your feelings and fears. You’re more the struggles of being a famous Broadway act.
to that very spot. Real recording, meanwhile, objective about what you’re trying to achieve.” We’re haggard and showbiz, basically.”
included sessions at Roxy Music guitarist Phil “Plus,” Si adds, “it was interesting writing pop- “And we’re not afraid to have fun,” nods Martin.
Manzanera’s studios in Surrey, with the majority oriented music when none of us were in love.” “We get serious on tracks like ‘The Captain’ —
taking place at The Vale in west London with “There wasn’t a lot of vague love language,” touching on topics like global warming and toxic
co-producer Chris McCrory and engineer Chris Martin agrees. “Fewer placeholder lyrics, too. masculinity — but we turned it into an OTT Celtic
D’Adda. Recorded almost entirely in analogue, There’s still love in there, but it has a different feel sea song!”
the album draws on a whole new dimension of when it’s about love for friends, family, pets or even “Why did we rhyme ‘cantankerous’ with ‘can’t
sound with horns, woodwind and strings. just the way that things are — to counterpoint the anchor us’?” Si teases. “Because it’s fun!”
“Does it make for a more atmospherically fear that they won’t always be — rather than being They’re ready to be figureheads, too, not just
dense piece of music?” Si muses. “I think so. We about being ‘in love’. It makes it more broadly for the queer community they’ve always stood
have a lot more space to build out the size of the human than any intense, specific romantic feelings.” for — compared to solo artists, there is scant
songs and add in those orchestral elements.” From the breathy delivery, widdly synths and representation among British bands — but for all
“As you get older, you get a bit more profound,” rump-a-pump melodrama of opener ‘Gnomes’ young creatives hoping to push the boundaries
says Martin, picking up the thread, while his via the faintly funk-infused attitude of ‘You Make and defy expectations through truly original art.
bandmates name influences like Scott Walker, Me Feel So Dumb’ and the skeletal vulnerability “We’re outcasts,” Martin concludes. “We make
Sonic Youth, Sufjan Stevens and Kate Bush, of Si to the widescreen experimentalism of music for anyone open-minded. And plenty of
as well as Grangemouth icons Cocteau Twins, grandstanding closer ‘Before the Walls’, the people who are open-minded just haven’t had an
Glasgow electro trailblazers The Blue Nile and execution is bold and breathtaking, combining experience where they can really embrace it yet.
Dundee post-punks The Associates. “You’re not the intimacy of the album’s themes with the Maybe it would be easier for us if we were more
grandeur of an act ready to take over the world. ‘normal’ or stuck to one style, but our heroes
Every experience they’ve enjoyed or endured — Bowie, Queen — all transcended genre to one
“We want over the past few years, right up to playing a
crowd of 3,000 at Portugal’s Extramuralhas
degree or another, and it feels like we have to do
the same!”
people to be Goth Festival a few days before we convene, and
tonight’s whites-of-their eyes homecoming has
“We’re not here to make music for the middle-
of-the-road,” McCarthy signs off with a wide
won over or clarified the band they want to be.
“We’re not Broadway,” Si laughs. “We’re not
smile. “We want people to be fully won over or
totally disgusted. We’re not interested in the in-
disgusted” even famous, but we talk as if we are dealing with between!”

April/May 2024 | Rolling Stone | 117

 L
AST NOVEMBER, JUST before the
Latin Grammys in Seville, Spain,
a crowd huddled in front of a
club called Sala Cosmos, where
the Brazilian superstar Anitta was
co-hosting a massive party with
Instagram. It got too massive: the venue was at
full capacity, but that didn’t stop people from

Anitta’s
shoving towards the door, eager to get in. Some
of them spilled onto the pavement, dancing to
the muffled, breakneck Brazilian funk beats
echoing from the DJ booth.
After a major health
scare, the Brazilian star Inside, Anitta was the life of the party,
learnt to let go and got ass up and twerking on the dance floor in a

Funk
back to her roots highlighter-bright green-and-yellow dress.
Stars like hip-hop legend DJ Premier and the
Colombian pop band Morat milled about, while
Anitta’s dancers, nearly all of them Brazilian,
BY JULYSSA LOPEZ
backed her up. The DJ spun track after track,
PHOTOGRAPHY BY LUCAS BORI

Revolution
each moment a showcase of propulsive, hyper-
energetic Brazilian funk, mirroring the parties
in Rio where this voltaic blend of hip-hop,
African rhythms and electronic music is played.
These days, Brazilian funk (also known as
funk carioca or baile funk) is bigger than ever,
spawning TikTok dance challenges and full-on
choreography. Anitta and her friends threw
themselves into the moves — a particularly
complex sequence involved push-ups. At one
point, Ovy on the Drums, the producer known
for making hits with Karol G, came up and told
her that to keep up, “uno tiene que ser atleta” —
“you have to be an athlete.”
Late into the night, someone on Anitta’s team
told her she could go home if she wanted. “I
was like, ‘I’m already drunk! Why am I going
to leave?’” She ended up being one of the last
people standing, shutting down the club. “It was
like 3am, and they were like, ‘OK, they need
to close the venue.’ I was like, ‘Where’s the
afterparty?’” she says. “I said, ‘I’m only leaving
when I’m kicked out,’ and I got kicked out.”
None of this is a big surprise: Anitta has built
a brand as a bright, brazen human firework
with a supremely dedicated global fan base. At
30, she’s a trilingual triple threat, with chart-
toppers in English, Spanish and Portuguese,
and her splashy reggaeton and pop hits have
helped earn her a Grammy nomination and even
Anitta at her home in a Guinness World Record. “I’m sorry for others,
Brazil in December but I think I’m the person who knows the most

119
how to do a party,” she jokes the next morning,
a mischievous smirk on her face.
As she says this, she’s sitting in the lobby of her
hotel in Seville. You can’t tell she’s been up all
night: she’s wearing a white crop top and a crisp
black skirt, her red hair in neat, casual waves.
Because Spain is hosting the Latin Grammys, the
week has been packed with flamenco showcases
and Spanish performances, which makes Anitta’s
event seem even more bold: only she’d have the
guts to throw a gigantic baile-funk bash in the
middle of everything.
To her, it was an opportunity to demand
attention for Brazil, a country that’s frequently
and unfairly overlooked in the Latin-music
industry because of the differences in language
and culture. “This party and things like that help
people understand my environment,” she says.
And it’s part of a much bigger plan. Later this
year, Anitta will release a Brazilian-funk album
she hopes will bring more people to the music
that brought her up. “I was born and raised in
the communities of Brazil, of Rio, and these are
the places that Brazilian funk originally comes
from,” she explains. “This was always my reality.”
The music made her a breakout star in Brazil.
Anitta, whose real name is Larissa de Macedo
Machado, comes from Honório Gurgel, a
working-class neighbourhood in Rio de Janeiro.
In 2010, she teamed up with funk-carioca
producer Batutinha and signed to a funk label
called Furacão. By then, Brazilian funk was
already an underground sensation, a result
of DJs throwing huge parties that drew from
funk and hip-hop in primarily Black favelas
during the 70s and 80s. Later, in the 90s, DJs
began incorporating freestyle records flown
in from Miami, amping the music with offbeat
electronic influences.
Brazilian-funk DJ Rodrigo Gorky, who
worked on Anitta’s upcoming album, says that
he used to refer to the music as “Miami bass
on steroids”. “Now, it’s a complete thing of its
own,” he says. The genre has shot off into all
directions, from tech house to Afrofuturism.
Anitta played a special role in its growth,
adding a more commercial, pop-focused twist
throughout her career. But while she’s never
abandoned Brazilian sounds, she’d been busy
scoring hits in other genres.
Then, last summer, she dropped the EP Funk
Generation: A Favela Story, along with videos
that capture life in Rio. It was the first sign going to be on the charts.’” Over the next year, it’s Anitta. “There’s no one better than her to
UEDA; SWIMSUIT BY AMIR SLAMA; HAIR AND MAKEUP

AND HENRIQUE SCA; PHOTO ASSISTANCE BY GUTO

HAIR AND MAKEUP BY KRISNA; STYLING BY DANIEL

ASSISTANT: FELIPE CARMO; STYLING ASSISTANCE

that she was turning back to her roots in a Anitta overhauled her management and label represent all this,” he says.
BY GUILHERME HIGASHIZIMA, HUGO MACHADO,

profound way, and there are deeply personal teams, moves that positioned her to pursue “To be the pioneers is very hard because
reasons for that: Anitta’s been through a lot the album. you’re doing something nobody has done, so you
BROWN; RETOUCHING BY JUNIOR REIS

over the past couple of years, including a She knows that making a Brazilian-funk album don’t have an example to follow,” she explains.
cancer scare in 2022. “I was thinking I was — especially when people are used to hearing “You need to trust your gut, your feelings, and
going to die,” she says. “And I said, ‘You know her work in more mainstream genres — isn’t an your intuition.”

A
what? I’m going to do an album for myself easy task. Brazilian funk has continued to grow
in case it’s the last thing I do — not worrying in the pop world, attracting interest from stars nitta started thinking about
about what’s going to happen after the album, like Rauw Alejandro and Cardi B. But it hasn’t the new album when she was in
not worrying about if the album is going to got its due at a global level. Gorky says if anyone the hospital. She says that in 2022,
be good, if people are going to like it, if it’s can make it an international phenomenon, she had major autoimmune issues

120 ROLLING STONE / APRIL/MAY 2024

while suffering a series of misdiagnoses. (She had in the background on International Women’s hell-bent on getting unexpected sounds. “She’s
surgery for endometriosis that summer, and that Day, saying execs originally told her the song like, ‘Nah, that’s too commercial. That’s way
December had to cancel a public appearance would “never break without a feat[ure] cuz too pop, there’s nothing new and exciting about
because she was admitted to a hospital in São I wasn’t strong enough for that”. “I already this. Show me more.’ And then we would start
Paulo.) At one point, the situation turned into accepted the sad unfair fact that I’m the major showing her really weird stuff, and she’s like,
a full-blown cancer scare. She went through investor here and asked the label to just do the ‘That’s what I’m looking for,’” he says.
tests and treatments for five months, somehow simple job they were supposed to: promote my The final product reinforces the funk with
keeping it a secret from millions of fans who music,” she wrote. touches of reggaeton and pop, and Anitta says it
follow her every move. She says she spoke up because nothing doesn’t fit neatly into any category. “It’s kind of
At that time, everything seemed great in her else worked. “Nowadays, I think it was a little like an artistic-alternative album,” she explains.
career. Anitta approached the universe like she immature, but also it was a little desperate. I “It’s not a mainstream of Latin because it’s funk.
was game for anything. She was unafraid to was desperate,” she says. “It is what it is. It’s not in the mainstream of the English world.”
talk about sex, plastic surgery (“My favourite Nowadays, being more mature, I would maybe She’s let go of chart expectations. “When you’re
one was my nose,” she told Andy Cohen), and do it differently. But maybe if I did differently, I just trying to beat this person, beat that chart,
eventually politics. Fans pressured her to speak wouldn’t be where I am right now.” beat that number, you don’t have a purpose…
out against Brazil’s former right-wing president Warner and Anitta announced they were And for me, it’s way more. I want to open doors
Jair Bolsonaro when he was campaigning in parting ways in April 2023. (“I really appreciate for my people.”
2018, and though Anitta wasn’t very political — the way things ended,” she says diplomatically.) Anitta spent the beginning of 2024 back in
she’s said she “started to have access to a good A few weeks later, she signed with Universal’s Rio, getting ready for Carnival in February and
education after I got money” — she studied Republic Records — and then in June, news preparing the album release. When we catch
up. Soon, she was one of Bolsonaro’s most broke that she’d split from her longtime manager up in January, she admits that things have been
outspoken critics. Brandon Silverstein. Anitta brought on Rebecca more hectic than she wants. “When the work
By 2020, a Brazilian newspaper ranked her Leon, known for working with Rosalía, a change comes back to being crazy, as I am right now
the third-most-influential political figure in the that marked a clean break in her career. Anitta in Brazil, then I just feel like, ‘Oh, my God, I
country, and when elections came in 2022, has worked to keep it that way. She avoids took a step back,’” she says. But she makes time
journalists wrote about how much sway her drama; when people sent her a viral video of for yoga and meditation every day, and goes on
endorsement had. (Anitta supported current Silverstein screaming at someone on Zoom, she spiritual retreats every five months or so.
president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.) Meanwhile, didn’t comment. “This is not the type of thing Her favourite thing to do when she’s off is to
her music was bigger than ever: ‘Envolver’, from that I’m trying to attract to my life,” she says. “I binge movies. “I’ve seen everything that you
her 2022 album, Versions of Me, made her the was like, ‘Guys, I don’t want to be part of this can imagine,” she says with a laugh. The night
first solo Latin artist to reach number one on conversation, to be honest.’” before, she went to the movies with her family
Spotify’s Global chart. In 2022, she became the Instead, she lasered in on the album, to see Mamonas Assassinas: O Filme, a biopic
first Brazilian artist to win a VMA. determined to make Brazilian funk right. “When about a Brazilian rock band that made it big in
It felt like she was everywhere, constantly I go to the studio, sometimes I hear people trying the early 90s before a plane crash killed all five
working, constantly creating, constantly to do it, but it’s still sounding very gringo,” she members. Plane crashes seem to be a theme;
weighing in. But she was exhausted. “In the says, laughing. Gorky remembers that she was she also watched Society of the Snow recently,
beginning, when things were going unbelievably followed by the 36-minute making-of doc on
amazing and fast and crazy, it was because I was YouTube.
just having fun,” she says. “At some point when “I was thinking A lot still weighs on her. She’s deeply

I was going
things got huge, I started to care, with pressure concerned about how obsessed with the
and numbers and ‘Oh, my God, keep my high- internet and social media some of her fans seem

to die. And I
level profile!’” Her illness forced her to slow to be. It breeds the kind of culture of constant
down and think about the never-ending grind comparisons and rankings she’s trying to move

said, ‘You know

her life had become. “It was hard for me to turn away from. There’s an accessibility to Anitta;
off the importance that I used to give to these she says she tries to do frequent meet-and-

what? I’m going

opinions … like, ‘Oh, am I big enough now? I greets to talk to fans directly. But she’s honest
was big last year. This year, I’m not so big. Oh, about what so much pressure can do to stars. “I

to do an album
I’m failing.’” tell them, ‘You cannot wish for me to be healthy
As she healed physically, she focused on her and at the same time charge me with charts and

for myself in
spiritual and mental well-being. “We can literally number ones everywhere in the world, in Latin
die tomorrow,” she says. “All of these people [America], in Brazil. A person can’t be healthy

case it’s the last

saying, ‘Oh, she’s not hot anymore. Oh, she was and number one and happy at the same time,’”
hot last year’… They will completely forget about she says. “That comes back to this point of the
you. Your life is over, and their lives keep going.
And you lived only to maintain yourself in these thing I do, not internet, that people are not getting used to life
being a cycle anymore. They want everything at
people’s minds and thoughts, even though they
don’t actually care.” worrying about the same time.”
She’s already influenced so much of public
Major career changes followed. In March
2023, she vented on Twitter about wanting out if it’s going to be life in Brazil. Now, she hopes she can impart a
few more lessons about letting go and staying
of her contract with Warner Records. “If there
was a fine to pay, I would have already auctioned on the charts’” present. “Let’s just live life appreciating
everything, not thinking, ‘How am I going to get
off my organs, no matter how expensive it was, something from this?’ Just doing things because
to get out,” she tweeted. She blasted the label you want to — that’s the message I’m going to
for using a photo of her with ‘Envolver’ playing send with this album.”

APRIL/MAY 2024 / ROLLING STONE 121

 the

CONTINUING
EDUC AT ION
of
FRA FEE
With roles in queer dramas, West End shows
and Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon sequel, Fra Fee
is an actor in his prime who wants to experience
it all. Here, he talks to Rolling Stone UK about
his childhood in musical theatre, the pressure of
working in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and
being guided by a zest for learning

BY WILL RICHARDS
PHOTOGRAPHY BY DEAN RYAN MCDAID

122 | Rolling Stone | April/May 2024

124 | Rolling Stone | August/September 2023
 FRA FEE

F
ra Fee is at his happiest when he’s
learning. When we meet at an old
haunt of his on south London’s
Bermondsey Street, he’s preparing
for the release of a big-budget
Netflix space opera sequel while
also rehearsing for a lead role in
the Almeida’s production of King Lear. Still, he
becomes most animated when the prospect of
something new comes up, namely when giving
out book recommendations or receiving them
from me. He has the air of a man hungrily
hoovering up knowledge and art from every
direction. “My aim is to get through the whole
Man Booker shortlist each year,” he smiles. “I’ve
read some bangers this year!”
The voracity with which the Northern Irish
actor consumes art in all its forms begins to
explain why his career has seen him take on a
wide range of roles across multiple disciplines,
moods and formats. Across a 20-year career so
far, Fee has been cast in shows in the West End, at
theatres across Ireland and dipped his toe into the
Marvel Cinematic Universe. What sets him apart,
though, despite these diverging paths, is a refusal
to be pigeon-holed into one type of role.
“It’s about having the freedom to explore
different things and different challenges, and
I’m really, really happy to be able to do it,” the
affable 36-year-old says over coffee in between
waxing lyrical about the next wave of Irish fiction
writers. “When I started, I chose to do musical
theatre initially because I really loved singing and
it felt like a good merger of the things that I love
and the talents that I have.” After falling for “the
proper stories that are really complex and require
proper acting”, moving onto both the big and
small screen felt like a suitable and exciting step.
“In this industry, it’s very, very easy for people
to be put into convenient boxes,” he says, before
adding that “everyone’s multifaceted, and it’s just just the first song, and it was never used again! away” from Northern Ireland “for all sorts of
storytelling at the end of the day.” It was really, really impressive.” Following in his obvious reasons.” Speaking to Attitude in 2022,
Fee’s story began when he played Kurt von son’s footsteps is his father, Frank Fee, who is Fee — who is openly gay — recalled having to write
Trapp in a school production of The Sound of currently starring in a local production of The an essay about why homosexuality was a sin while
Music at the age of 10 and was asked to submit Ferryman with the Bardic Theatre Group. “They he attended an all-boys Catholic school. Those
a biography about his passions and aims. “What don’t shy away from proper stuff,” Fee says of the early experiences sparked a desire to relocate
did they expect me to write?!” he laughs. “‘Hi, local scene’s ethos. “That love for literature and which saw him move to Manchester to study
I’m Fra, and I love fish and chips?!’” Instead, he drama is really encouraged and built into your music at university, followed by a post-grad in
shared his truth at the time: “When I grow up, I DNA. It’s a literary country.” musical theatre at the Royal Academy of Music.
want to be an actor.” Despite this, Fee says he “couldn’t wait to get This led him straight to his first full role — in a
Fee credits the community theatre scene in production of Dirty Dancing. As he recounts with
Northern Ireland as being vital to his development a laugh, his status as a limitless all-rounder was
at a young age. He grew up in Dungannon, a town baked in from the start.
in Co. Tyrone, where the theatre would pitch up In this industry, it’s very, From there, he took on roles in Les Misérables,
with ample funding. This, the actor says, was an
irreplaceable tool for young creatives when the
very easy for people to be Sam Mendes’ The Ferryman and Romeo & Juliet.
He also took over from Eddie Redmayne as The
central hub of Belfast “felt like a world away”. put into convenient boxes. Emcee in the West End adaptation of Cabaret.
“The local amateur stuff is taken really seriously Everyone’s multifaceted, His big break on screen came with a part in
and done really well,” he says, crediting the scene Marvel TV show Hawkeye, in which he portrayed
for both his ambition and the range of roles and and it’s just storytelling at Kazimierz “Kazi” Kazimierczak. Next, he will take
moods he could inhabit from such a young age. “I the end of the day a prominent part in the sequel to Zack Snyder’s
remember the sets being extraordinary. For The Netflix space epic Rebel Moon. “Saying no has
Sound of Music, they had this actual waterfall for been really important for me,” he explains of

April/May 2024 | Rolling Stone | 125

126 | Rolling Stone | April/May 2024
 FRA FEE

keeping his profile as an actor fluid. “It’s a really this extraordinary cast of misfits and outsiders
important part of the process if you want things that are all trying to find a purpose”. Fee plays
to shift in some way.” the tyrant Balisarius, spending most of it in a
big grey beard playing an older version of the
In person, Fee is an affable conversationalist and character. “There’s a whole wealth of mystery and
keen storyteller. As we chat, he wistfully recalls background as to where he’s come from, how he
living in Bermondsey’s convenient but uniquely has found himself in this unbelievable position of
secluded pocket of central London during the power, and why he felt he deserves that escalation
pandemic, and how he’d bring whichever book to higher influence.
he was devouring at the time into the cafe we’re “It was so cool, and something I felt everyone
now sat in. After craving a quieter and more could get on board with,” he adds. “In Part
balanced lifestyle when away from the West End One, you’re seeing your archetypal evil guy, but
stage or Hollywood film sets, he now lives in rural there’s a person behind that mask… or in this
Oxfordshire with his partner Declan Bennett. case behind that fake beard. He’s the elusive ‘man
With theatre work drying up during the behind the curtain’ figure. People quiver when
pandemic, Fee — ever the learner — decided to they hear his name, but he was a young person
use the downtime by undertaking Julia Cameron’s who grew up in a somewhat dispossessed society
famous 12-week programme The Artist’s Way, to and fully believes he is entitled to and worthy of
further hone his craft. One of the cornerstones this position of power.”
There’s a reason of the programme is Morning Pages, an activity Cast in the role as a younger man, Fee largely
I’m doing this on that asks you to write three pages of notes in a plays the older version of himself, while the story
stream of consciousness as soon as you wake up explores his “rise to power” through flashbacks.
an intuitive level, each morning. The idea is to unclog the brain This origin story is set to be expanded upon in the
to have the joy of of conscious thought and leave more room for film’s sequel — shot at the same time as the first
creativity. “I didn’t manage it this morning!” he film — which lands on Netflix in April. “There’s a
trying on different laughs, but it’s become a routine that serves as “a really, really wonderful story to be told,” says Fee.
costumes. By doing form of prayer, meditation and gratitude” each
that, you discover day. “Whether it’s spiritual or magical, it’s like
you’re picking up your armoury in order to set
AFter exIstIng wIthIn these parallel worlds of
musical theatre and big-budget, glossy Hollywood
realities that create out to do something.” productions, Fee is now set to stretch himself
empathy with your In hindsight, Fee agrees he must have been once again with a starring role in Lost Boys and
“inadvertently manifesting” something for Fairies, an upcoming queer BBC drama about a
fellow man himself when he was unable to complete all 12 Cardiff-based gay couple’s journey to adoption. It
weeks of The Artist’s Way after getting the call to will be the first time that he will lead a production
star in Hawkeye alongside Jeremy Renner, Hailee as a gay character. The semi-autobiographical
Steinfeld and Florence Pugh. The Marvel debut story of writer Daf James sees Andy (Fee) and
opened a new chapter in the actor’s career. “I was his partner Gabriel (Sion Daniel Young) adopt
really keen to keep knocking on those big film and three children, with Gabriel aiming to repair his
TV doors, and I was an MCU fan at that point,” he relationship with his father while also moving
says. “I know there’s a lot of content there, but towards becoming one himself. “Whenever
at that stage Hawkeye was one of the first of this [ James] got the chance to submit something for
next phase of TV shows in that universe. I never the BBC writers’ room, he wanted to write about
imagined myself being in them, I just imagined gay adoption, because it’s what he knows, and
going to the cinema to see them.” thankfully it got greenlit,” smiles Fee. “It’s just
A comic book fan in his youth, Fee is aware unbelievably beautiful.”
of audience expectations of how a character He continues, “[Having children is] something
they are intimately familiar with should be that particularly gay people have to really
portrayed on screen, something he has also had consider, because it’s not going to happen
to contend with in his roles in Les Mis, Romeo accidentally. You’re going to have to choose for
& Juliet and now King Lear. Like everything it to happen, and it’s a really big choice.” Fee has
with his outlook on his creative life though, he thought about adoption himself, but “right now
intends to transcend these expectations and it’s certainly not on the table.” The role allowed
bend the characters into new shapes. “There’s him to “imaginatively” explore that outcome, and
not a pressure as such, because fundamentally “go through all of the feelings that come with even
you have to do what’s on the script,” he muses. thinking about inviting someone into your life that
“The fandom surrounding it is extraordinary, you have to be responsible for and nurture and
and you have to enjoy that side of it rather than love and guide through life. It was a really, really
feel pressure to meet some sort of expectation. beautiful experience.”
You have to do what serves the story.” To prepare for the role, Fee sought the
GUTTER PHOTO CREDIT

Back in big-budget blockbuster territory for advice of a handful of his gay friends who have
Rebel Moon, Fee regales the film’s “old school, big adopted children. “It’s an incredible purpose to
storytelling on such a wonderfully epic scale with have in life, and such a selfless thing,” he says of

April/May 2024 | Rolling Stone | 127

 FRA FEE

comes to sexuality,” he begins, “which of course

I’m very happy to do, and there are certain
instances when I feel you need an actor who
has had the lived experience of that character,
especially if that lived experience is a big part
of the story.
“I wouldn’t want to only play that side of
myself, aside from the fact that it’s only one
significant but small-ish side to who I am,” he
adds. “It goes back to my 15-year-old self that
refused to do my own accent. There’s a reason
why I’m doing this on an intuitive level, to
have the joy and freedom of trying on different
costumes and armour. It’s playing outside of my
lived experience, because by doing that you get
to discover other realities that create empathy
with your fellow man.”
Bringing everything full circle, he smiles,
before saying of the personal growth that comes
with his craft: “It also helps you learn more. I’m
curious about the different strands of potential
that this job can provide,” he says. “There’s
potential in reaching out and touching people
in different ways. Hawkeye was the very first
time that I’d done proper stunt fighting, and
I realised I fucking loved it! I wasn’t bad at it
either. I began to believe that in another life I
would’ve been a boxer. It’s a real gift when a job
can afford you the luxury of trying new things
and finding new skills.”
As his rich and varied career continues to take
him in many new directions — next up is Apple
TV+’s conspiracy thriller Prime Target, where
he’ll appear alongside One Day star Leo Woodall
— the only prerequisite is that each role pushes
him further towards understanding himself,
others and the human condition. It’s all about
chasing a feeling he first had as a child. “One
of my first seminal moments that sparked and
ignited something in me was when I was very,
parenthood. “I’m definitely open to it, but it’ll what that was about as a 15- or 16-year-old!” he very young,” he says, leaning forwards in his
have to be a big surge inside of me to do it.” The laughs. “It’s actually really lovely to do something chair for emphasis. His sister Claire was playing
show’s importance also stems from its celebratory in your own voice and find these similar strands Mickey in a performance of Blood Brothers at
nature. There’s one small scene of the lead of character and actor.” her all-girls school, St Patrick’s in Dungannon,
characters experiencing homophobia, otherwise The same principle can apply to Fee’s and Fee and his mother were going to collect her
it’s “such a celebration” says Fee. “Their social queerness. While he doesn’t want this to lead after rehearsals.
worker loves them and puts them closer to the to him being typecast in exclusively gay roles, “My ma sent me in to stand at the back to
top of the list because they’re two really decent he does wants to explore this more on screen. let her know we were outside, and they were
fellows, and they’re going to create a gorgeous “There is a preference for playing oneself when it finishing the rehearsal with ‘Tell Me It’s Not True’.
home for whoever it is that’s invited into their life. I’d never seen anything on stage before, ever,
It’s a very positive, happy representation because and I was completely transfixed,” he remembers,
that’s what happened! That’s Daf’s experience. He giving the same wide-eyed grin you can imagine
and his partner are very, very happy dads to these the seven-year-old Fee had at the back of the
STYLING BY SACHA DANCE; GROOMING BY SVEN

There is a preference for

BAYERBACH AT CAROL HAYES MANAGEMENT

kids. It’s wonderful.” school hall that day.

Fee’s latest role is also representative of a larger
shift in his self-confidence and what he wants to
playing oneself when it “I was hooked,” he says of the lightning bolt
moment, which still powers him forwards to this
bring to his acting. “When I was younger, I used to comes to sexuality, and day and informs the core of what he wants to be
always want to play parts as far away from myself there are instances when as an actor and a performer. “It gave me the
as possible,” he reflects. “I hated acting in my own aspiration of looking for a job that would give me
accent for a long, long time. Even when I was a you need an actor who has that exact same feeling that I had that day. I was
kid and did youth opera, I adamantly refused to had that lived experience transfixed by the magic of a story, of an
perform in my own accent. I couldn’t hear my imagination, and everything I do — even now — is
own accent without cringing. I’m not really sure me trying to continually pursue that.”

April/May 2024 | Rolling Stone | 129

SUMMER

SESSIONS
Experience live music at its best with the
Rolling Stone UK guide to this year’s finest
music festivals across the UK and Europe

130
 LIVE AT LEEDS:
IN THE PARK
25 MAY, TEMPLE NEWSAM PARK, LEEDS

After starting as a multi-venue indoor festival among

the bustling streets of Leeds, 2022 saw Live at
Leeds launch a new event — In The Park — which
does exactly what it says on the tin. On May bank
CONFIRMED ARTISTS:
holiday weekend, the very best in indie will descend
The Kooks,
on Temple Newsam for an unmissable knees-up. Declan McKenna,
Satisfying all of your nostalgic cravings, headliners The Cribs

include The Kooks and The Cribs, while Declan INSIDER TIP:
McKenna, Future Islands, Circa Waves and more This is a perfect day out for families,
are also on board. As well as living out all your indie and under-fives tickets can be
added to your order for free when
dreams, there’s also plenty of opportunity to find you buy your own.
your new favourite band too — look out for the likes
BUY TICKETS:
of Vistas, The Mysterines and Flowerovlove. liveatleedsinthepark.seetickets.com

WIDE AWAKE
CONFIRMED ARTISTS:
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard,
Slowdive, Young Fathers

INSIDER TIP:
The main stage at the 2024 event
will be hosted by Seattle radio
institution KEXP, who produce some
of the best live sessions around. 25 MAY, BROCKWELL PARK, LONDON
After its first planned edition was cancelled due to COVID, Wide
BUY TICKETS:
Awake has become the biggest post-pandemic success story on
kaboodle.com the London festival calendar. Defined by its wide range of styles
and genres, this day festival is committed to spotlighting the
weirder and more leftfield corners of rock and pop music. It’s
also leading the way in green technology, with its Positive Policy
aiming to reduce the event’s carbon emissions year-on-year.
The team behind the festival also programme venues
like MOTH Club and The Shacklewell Arms, and they do an
unmatched job of bringing the same energy of these small,
sweaty venues to the big stage. The bill will be topped by King
Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, Slowdive, and Young Fathers: three
bands who personify Wide Awake’s ethos — that you can become
a festival headliner by blazing your own uncompromising path
and putting weirdness at the centre of your music.
 T H E R O L L I N G S T O N E U K F E S T I VA L G U I D E 2 0 2 4

Primavera Sound, 29 May–2 June ON THE MOUNT

Parc del Fòrum, Barcelona. After a few AT WASING
years of mixing up its formula – first a two-weekend
festival, then a sister edition in Madrid – Primavera 17–29 JUNE
Sound returns to its spiritual home of Barcelona’s Parc THE MOUNT, WASING
del Fòrum for a three-day event in 2024. This year’s ESTATE, READING
While strictly a concert series,
headliners include SZA, Vampire Weekend, Lana Del these outdoor gigs are set to have
Rey, Pulp and Charli XCX, while — as always with a magic and beauty that rivals
Primavera — the undercard is bustling with forward- any top festival. You’d expect
nothing less from a show set deep
thinking DJs, leftfield pop stars and rock royalty to take in the Berkshire countryside,
you through till sunrise. where an outdoor amphitheatre
As much about the atmosphere as the line-up, is surrounded by panoramic
treescape vistas. It makes for the
Primavera Sound attracts a crowd from all over Europe lushest of gig settings, while the
and beyond, and is industry-leading in a number of acts — everything from Aussie
legends Crowded House to dance-
ways, including being an early adopter of committing
floor fillers Jungle — mean that
to a 50/50 gender split on its line-up. every taste is catered for.

DOWNLOAD
CONFIRMED ARTISTS:
Queens of the Stone Age, Fall Out
Boy, Avenged Sevenfold

FESTIVAL INSIDER TIP:

Be sure to check out a band on
one of the smaller stages. This
14–16 JUNE, DONINGTON spiritual home of rock has quite the
reputation for hosting the stars of
PARK, LEICESTERSHIRE tomorrow, today.

BUY TICKETS:
downloadfestival.co.uk

Devil horns at the ready! The home of rock returns once more in 2024, fresh from winning the Festival
Award at the inaugural Rolling Stone UK Awards, in collaboration with Rémy Martin, last year. This time
around, the line-up reflects the sheer breadth of creativity existing within rock and heavy metal. Emo icons
Fall Out Boy will make history with their first-ever Download headline set, while Busted — yes, you read that
correctly — will be whipping up a healthy dose of nostalgia over on the Avalanche Stage. As ever, though,
it’s the powerful community feeling that really makes Download stand out — with music fans from all over
the world uniting at this Vatican of rock music to worship at its riff-laden altar. All hail.
GLASTONBURY
26–30 JUNE, WORTHY FARM, SOMERSET
For five days, a dairy farm in the deep Somerset countryside
transforms into the greatest show on Earth. Since its humble
beginnings in 1970, Glastonbury has gone on to become a national
institution and the best weekend of the year for many of its
attendees. It’s a place where the biggest names around share stages
with upcomers, all hoping to deliver that special magic Worthy Farm

KAPPA FUTURFESTIVAL
has become so known for. With the site roughly the size of 500
football pitches, you’re unlikely to see it all, so do plan your weekend
carefully if you’re heading down. The main stages are great, but it’s
the festival’s south-east corner that truly comes alive after dark. A
trip to Shangri-La and Block9, to name but two of Glastonbury’s most
5–7 JULY, PARCO DURA, TURIN, ITALY
celebrated nightlife areas, is likely to be among the wildest evenings For more than 10 years, Kappa CONFIRMED ARTISTS:
you’ll have all year.
FuturFestival has been an essential Skrillex, Jeff Mills, Bonobo,
pilgrimage for dance lovers wanting Honey Dijon, The Blessed Madonna
to head to the continent, while also INSIDER TIP:

Timber Festival soaking up the delights of Turin. This

year’s edition — featuring a newly
Last year saw the festival debut two new
stages: The Voyager and The Kosmo.

5–7 July, Feanedock, resurgent Skrillex at its very top —

Be sure to check those out.
BUY TICKETS:

Moira, Swadlincote. At one

looks set to continue that reputation
for another year. Bellissimo indeed… kappafuturfestival.it

with nature? This could well be the festival

MAD COOL
for you. Timber is a weekend festival set
in the lush National Forest where music
lovers, outdoor adventures and wellness
seekers come together to be restored by
the natural world. That means a chance to
chill out with a beer on the hill as the sun 10–13 JULY, IBERDROLA MUSIC VENUE IN VILLAVERDE
goes down, or even stepping into your Since its inception in 2016, Mad Cool has

dancing shoes and enjoying world-class become a highlight of the European festival
circuit, bringing international heavyweights
DJs at the woodland Eyrie stage. It’s the and Spanish newcomers to Madrid for an
all-night party. The festival moved to a new
perfect choice for the environmentally location in 2023, and will this year welcome

conscious festivalgoer. Dua Lipa, Pearl Jam, Måneskin, The Killers

and more in a world-beating line-up. Of the
less well-known acts, we recommend Irish
rap troupe Kneecap, chart-topping singer
CONFIRMED ARTISTS: Kenya Grace, south London jazz stalwart
Kiiōtō, Jason Singh, Frankie Archer, Joel Culpepper and the woozy funk of
Dave Haslam, Rozi Plain Aussie star Jet Vesper.
INSIDER TIP: CONFIRMED ARTISTS:
Take a moment for yourself and Dua Lipa, The Killers, Bring Me The Horizon
visit the woodland spa and yoga
INSIDER TIP:
workshop.
For a panoramic view of the site and the main
BUY TICKETS: stage, take a trip on the festival’s ferris wheel.
timberfestival.org.uk BUY TICKETS:
madcoolfestival.es/tickets

April/May 2024 | Rolling Stone | 133

 T H E R O L L I N G S T O N E U K F E S T I VA L G U I D E 2 0 2 4

NOS ALIVE
11–13 JULY, PASSEIO MARÍTIMO CONFIRMED ARTISTS:

DE ALGÉS, LISBON, PORTUGAL Pearl Jam, Dua Lipa, Arcade Fire

INSIDER TIP:
Since its inception in 2007, Nos Alive has honed a By day, head into Lisbon to
well-deserved reputation for being one of Portugal’s experience the delights of one
top music events — attracting a heady mixture of of Europe’s most famed culinary
music-loving locals and tourists seeking a glorious capitals. Then go for a dip in the
getaway at the sun-soaked coastal festival. This Atlantic Ocean. That’ll go some way
year’s reliably brilliant line-up takes in icons from towards nursing the hangover…
grunge and modern pop and everything in between.
When the festival isn’t on, Lisbon is one of Europe’s BUY TICKETS:
top cities to explore by day. nosalive.com/en/ticket-office

POSITIVUS FESTIVAL 19–20 JULY

RIGA, LATVIA LATITUDE
25–28 JULY, HENHAM
The weather at UK festivals is notoriously CONFIRMED ARTISTS: PARK, SUFFOLK
unpredictable, so it’s no real surprise that some Jason Derulo, Offset, Nothing But
Thieves, Benjamin Clementine, Since 2006, Latitude Festival has
festivalgoers are seeking sunnier climes with developed a rightful
Jacob Collier, Will Butler & Sister
top line-ups. Positivus is firmly in that category. Squares, Picture Parlour reputation for
Summers in Riga are mild and sunny, and it’s also being one of the UK’s
INSIDER TIP: leading arts events, where
one of Europe’s most affordable cities to boot.
Riga is considered to be one of stadium-slaying musicians
Where better, then, to take in headline sets from sit comfortably on the bill
Europe’s finest cultural gems —
pop giant Jason Derulo, Migos leader Offset and packed with an array of celebrated alongside some of the UK’s top
pop polymath Jacob Collier? See you in the sun. museums and concert halls. Culture literary and comedy acts. Set
vultures will lap it up. against the idyllic surroundings
of Suffolk’s Henham Park, it’s
BUY TICKETS: considered to be one of the UK’s
positivusfestival.com/en most family friendly festivals
too. It’s not every day
that punk poet icon Dr
John Cooper Clarke
can share the same
bill as Gen-Z pop hero
Baby Queen, right? Quite
simply, there’s something
for everyone at Latitude…

134 | Rolling Stone | April/May 2024

SZIGET 7–12 AUGUST
ÓBUDA ISLAND, ALL POINTS
EAST
BUDAPEST 16–26 AUGUST
VICTORIA PARK,
EAST LONDON
In the middle of the Danube River in Budapest is Óbuda Island, a
For ten days, some of the world’s most
108-hectare strip of land that has played host to Sziget festival since pioneering and boundary-pushing
its inception 31 years ago. Since then, the festival has grown from a acts descend on east London for the
showcase of local talent to a home for international superstars, while mother of all parties. This year, things
retaining its transgressive spirit. From Wednesday to Monday this August, kick off with acclaimed producer/
rapper Kaytranada, before the likes
the city is taken over by a line-up mixing pop and dance, with the likes of
of Loyle Carner, LCD Soundsystem
Four Tet, Fred again.. and Overmono rubbing shoulders with Becky Hill, and many more make their mark on
Nia Archives, Yard Act and more. the APE stage. Field Day, meanwhile,
is a glorious one-day celebration of
dance/electronic music. The best part?
It’s just a stone’s throw from Mile End
station on the Central Line — which
means that weary punters can be back
home in no time after a grand day out.

CONFIRMED ARTISTS:
Sam Smith, Stormzy, Louis Tomlinson
INSIDER TIP:
READING & LEEDS
21–25 AUGUST, RICHFIELD AVENUE, READING; BRAMHAM PARK, LEEDS
The Reading & Leeds Festivals have ruled the August
With the festival running from bank holiday weekend for decades, and are taking a
Wednesday to Monday, it’s the perfect big leap into the future in 2024. As well as laying on
event to base an entire summer holiday a stellar set of headliners — from Lana Del Rey and
around. Fred again.. to Liam Gallagher, Blink-182 and beyond
BUY TICKETS: — they’re launching new dance stage The Chevron
and welcoming the return of the Radio 1 Stage. As a
szigetfestival.com/en/tickets/list
festival that defines many British music fans’ teens, it
highlights the prevalence of dance music in modern
culture as Reading & Leeds shapeshift once again to
remain at the centre of the zeitgeist.

End of the Road, 29

August–1 September
Larmer Tree Gardens,
Dorset. The traditional festival season
closer, End of the Road takes over Dorset’s

GREEN MAN
idyllic Larmer Tree Gardens every year.
Having built a fiercely loyal fanbase over the
15–18 AUGUST past decade, the festival welcomes rock
BRECON BEACONS, bands, singer-songwriters, jazz musicians,
WALES pop stars and beyond with an ethos that
In the Black Mountains of Wales each August, Green Man festival proves why it’s prioritises boundary-pushing. This year,
become a shining star of the UK festival calendar. Musically, it presents folk, dance
and electronic music, rock and beyond, but it’s the festival’s overall energy and
IDLES, Slowdive and Fever Ray top the bill,
community feel that sets it apart. Much like Glastonbury, thousands rock up to the with other highlights including Lankum,
festival each year regardless of who’s on the line-up, with the music almost feeling
coincidental to the overall experience of spending a weekend in the mountains. That Jockstrap and CMAT. With literature, poetry,
doesn’t mean they don’t put on thoughtful and exceptional bills though; this year’s
headliners Big Thief, Sampha, Jon Hopkins and Sleaford Mods continue Green Man’s
silent discos and more, End of the Road is
championing of the cult stars of the independent scene. the perfect way to see out the summer.

April/May 2024 | Rolling Stone | 135

 T H E R O L L I N G S T O N E U K F E S T I VA L G U I D E 2 0 2 4

ESSENTIALS
EVERYTHING
FESTIVAL

YOU NEED
FOR A
SUMMER OF
LIVE GIGS
— RAIN OR
SHINE

Got the power Checkmate

Content is king when it comes to music festivals,
This playful piece from CHÉ Studios
so a power-bank is a must when you’ve drained
will be a festival favourite. It’s so
your smartphone battery taking hundreds of videos
versatile you could wear it with a
of your favourite artist that you will never watch
vest top and shorts, or over a dress
again. Hama’s quick-charge bank from Selfridges
with a bucket hat to give you Portia
can charge three devices simultaneously, while
from The White Lotus vibes.
also being small and light and therefore easy to
The Check Mate shirt has
carry. It’s also perfect for charging smartwatches,
a vintage-style fit and a
digital cameras or Bluetooth headphones, so it will
checkerboard print,
get plenty of use outside festival season too.
with embroidery
PD10 HD 10k Quick-charge powerbank, £39.99, by
inspired by retro
Hama at Selfridges, selfridges.com
fruit stickers.
Super soft,
Clever camp it’s made
The North Face is a connoisseur of the cool but from 100 per
hardworking accessory. Its Base Camp Travel cent Tencel™
Washbag is water-repellent and comes with a handy Lyocell for comfort
hook for hanging up to utilise space — and to keep and breathability to
your toiletries dry if your tent gets flooded. A zip-top keep you fresh. This
opening makes for easy access to your toiletries. shirt’s a headliner for your
Made from recycled fabric, the wash bags come in summer wardrobe.
khaki, black or yellow, with the trademark logo. Check Mate shirt, £125, by
Base Camp Travel Washbag (small) £28, by The North CHÉ Studios, chestudios.
Face, thenorthface.co.uk co.uk

Go green Sac-magique
Ray-Ban has created a sustainable twist on The magical cross-body bag from Uniqlo with its
a classic style with its unisex Teru bio-based Tardis-like storage qualities is back in a new range
sunglasses. The bold frames are as green as of colourways. The semi-circular mini shoulder bag
their colour (other options include electric blue, comes in paler hues for 2024, with cornflower blue
lilac and black), created sustainably and come (pictured), lavender, peach and daffodil yellow, as
in a minimalist design so they will work well well as classic monochrome shades. Made famous
with any festival outfit. by TikTok, the shoulder bag is an essential for any
Teru Bio-based sunglasses in algae green, £123, by festival, owing to the fact you can just fit so damn
Ray-Ban, ray-ban.com much into it.
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WORDS AND EDIT: JOSEPH KOCHARIAN

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136 | Rolling Stone | April/May 2024

 Boot up
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April/May 2024 | Rolling Stone | 137

Inside the ring,
injuries are
common. “If no
one dies, it’s not
a corraleja,”
fans say

138
 Colombia’s corralejas bull fights
area bloody free-for-all where
only the humans die

BY TOBY MUSE

‘It’s like
I’m dancing
PHOTOGRAPHY BY
CARLOS PARRA RIOS
 ‘IT’S LIKE I’M DANCING WITH DEATH’

In the coliseum, the bull stares down

hundreds of men. He’s a half-ton
killer, black, head white like a skull,
horns curled. Bred for the fight.
There’s violence in his DNA. The bull scans audience screams. Quickly crossing himself, “This sport is for psychos,” Bravo says
the crowd in the ring, alert to any challenge. Bravo sprints — straight at those horns. Now afterwards, his eyes still glowing from the
The crowd watches for the animal’s slightest everything happens faster than the brain adrenalin.
of movements. When the hundreds of men can process. Why is this man running at the These are the corralejas, bullfighting
flee, they move in tandem, like a school of fish charging bull? How can he survive? What the Colombian-style. The corralejas mix San
dodging a shark. The blazing tropical sun beats fuck is going on? Fermín’s Running of the Bulls, where the brave,
down on us all. The audience is on its feet, hollering. The the drunk, and the dumb outrun marauding
From the crowd steps a man. Catalino Bravo drum solo keeps going, faster, madder. The man bulls, and Spain’s traditional bullfighting. But
wears the face of a clown, white paint over his and the bull charge each other, erasing metres with important differences. Here the bulls don’t
black skin, a nose daubed red. Something’s in a second. die. Only the men.
crazed in his eyes. An entirely sane man would At the last moment, when it seems inevitable For more than a century along Colombia’s
not yell at an enraged 600-pound bull that that Bravo will be gored, everyone holds their Caribbean coast, hundreds of men — many
stands 30 feet in front of him. breath. Inches from those murderous horns, loaded on rum and beer — have crammed into
“Hey! Hey! Hey!” Bravo launches himself into the air, soaring over rickety wooden coliseums to test their bravery
The 25,000 or so spectators cheer Bravo. In the bull. The bull steamrolls forward, and Bravo with the bulls. I’ve spent more than a decade
the stands, one of the band’s drummers is lost lands in the dirt in a roll and jumps to his feet. watching the corralejas, drinking the rum, seeing
in his solo. The drums beat faster and faster. The crowd hollers, shaking the wooden the bulls, learning the rules and eccentricities.
“Hey! Hey! Hey!” pillars, threatening to bring down the entire Over an afternoon, 36 bulls are released, one at
The bull settles his gaze on Bravo and stomps coliseum. The “jump of death”, a trick that a time, to tear through the crowds of men. After
the ground, shooting dust into the air. Bravo has cost men their lives, had been perfectly five minutes or so, the bull is lassoed and led
takes two steps forward, two steps back, executed — this time. A second too early or too out of the ring, and the next animal barges out
revving his body. Rapt, the audience watches. late, the bull could hook Bravo, ripping him of the metal doors. Most of the men are there
The drums pound in a frenzy, and Bravo again open. Now, he runs around the ring, celebrating as voluntary cannon fodder for the spectacle.
shouts “Hey! Hey! Hey!” like a champion. From the stands, adoring Their mission: stay off the bulls’ horns. The
The bull charges. The audience cheers, the spectators throw money down to him. slow, the unlucky? The bull gets them. But a core
of some 50 men are professional bullfighters
like Bravo, who earn their living in front of the
bull. The “Suicide Men”, they’re called. Injuries
are daily. Deaths are common. Supporters and
critics alike compare it to the gladiator games of
ancient Rome.
In the stands above, tens of thousands
watch the show, dancing to live orchestras. Old
women, shots of rum in their hands, laughingly
repeat the event’s motto: “If no one dies, it’s
not a corraleja.”
It’s a six-day dark carnival of music, rum,
blood and madness. One of the world’s deadliest
sports — and its time might soon be up.

T
raditional bullfighting
was brought over to Colombia
by the Spanish colonisers,
an Old World pastime for
the New. In Spain and parts
of Latin America, they had
corraleja-style events in small
towns in eras past. Closing off the town plaza,
men performed daredevil tricks with bulls

A PR IL/M AY 2024
 The corraleja
stadium may soon be
a thing of the past

provided by local wealthy cattlemen. But over Colombia “one of the most unequal countries Luis Baldovino, a YouTuber who films
time, these were outlawed or abandoned as in the world”. Nearly 40 per cent of the country corralejas for his El Show de Frijolito TV
too dangerous. Except here on Colombia’s lives in poverty, close to 14 per cent in what is channel, comes whenever he can. “It’s a
Caribbean coast. The history is murky, but the classified as extreme. These farmlands of the passion — it’s something that you can’t put into
few historians of the corralejas believe they coast are concentrated in the hands of a small words. The men express themselves in the ring
started in the first half of the 19th century in number of families, massive cattle ranches that fucking around with the bull.” He laughs as if
the flatlands of the provinces of Sucre and stretch over the horizon. It feels close to feudal. aware that what he says is both absurd and a
Córdoba, where the business is cattle. These And maybe that is part of this story: a legion of stone-cold fact.
are beautiful, baked young men who know This affection is not shared by all those in
landscapes topped their chances of rising Colombia. Gustavo Petro, the country’s first left-
with thick t ropic al “This sport is for high are small, and so wing president, has promised to end the corralejas.
clouds that cut like
white mountain ranges
psychos,” Bravo see in the ring a path.
In the corralejas, the
“I’ve asked all the mayors of the country to
stop organising shows of death,” he tweeted.
against the pale-blue says. “Death is always poor man can become “Colombia is a country of beauty not savagery.”
sky. The people along at your side, even if you someone, but the price The pre sident spoke for millions of
the Caribbean coast
are known as Costeños.
can’t see her” is blood.
S p e c t ato r s ad o re
Colombians who loathe the corralejas, calling
it a blood sport, an abuse of animal and man.
In the faces you see the event. They use When videos of bullfighters dying go online, the
traces of Africa, Europe, and the Indigenous of words like “excitement”and “party” but mostly comments can be split between commiserations
the Americas. They are proud of their region, “tradition”. and those cheering on the bull.
heritage and local eccentricities. Just half an “I love the action … the adrenalin of the “My cause is the rights of animals,” Sen.
hour down the highway from this corraleja, bulls,” says Cristina Osorio, standing outside of Andrea Padilla says in her crisp Bogotá accent.
the town of San Antero holds its annual donkey the ring. “There aren’t any rules. Anything goes “Wherever they are victims of violence, me,
beauty contest. for the party. It’s six days — enjoy yourself to the and I know thousands of other Colombians, are
The World Bank confirms what your eyes max.” And then she says something you’ll hear ready to speak up.”
see in this country of small oases of wealth at every corraleja. “The corralejas — you carry A lifelong dedication to animal rights earned
surrounded by widespread need, calling this in your blood.” her a seat in Colombia’s senate. She still

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 ‘IT’S LIKE I’M DANCING WITH DEATH’

Inside the medical tent,

nurses tended to Omar
Lopez after a bull ripped
open his leg

volunteers at animal-rescue foundations and says Samuel Negrete, a doctor who for years has
sterilisation programmes for stray cats and dogs, tended the drunk, heat-afflicted, and wounded
and she wants the corralejas shut down — forever. of the corralejas.
“These are shows of violence against
animals, whose aim is to make the animal the tiny town of Cotorra holds the “mother of
suffer, to torture them,” Padilla says, and the corralejas”, one of the largest and longest-
she has introduced running. A man steps
legislation that would into the ring, tall and
ban the corralejas, “We’re gladiators,” skinny, kneels quickly,
as well as traditional says one bullfighter. touches the dirt, and
bullfighting and c ro s s e s h i m s e l f. A
cockfighting. “These “This is tradition, the legend of the sport,
are violent spectacles human being against f a n s w ave t o h i m .
that are good for no the beast” Outside the ring, he
one, and keep these is Sinibaldo España
towns submerged in a Saltarin. As he waits for
culture of bread and circus, and so they don’t the bull, he is Saltarin, the bullfighter.
get important necessities like health, education “When I’m in the ring, I’m someone else.
and safety.” The world changes. It’s all different. I don’t
The bill advanced through the legislature, know how to explain it. And when I step out
posing the biggest legal challenge to the of the ring, it changes back,” he says. Other Bullfighter “Crazy
Horse” returns to visit
corralejas, threatening to outlaw them bullfighters say the same: that the ring is
friends. He lost his leg
(corralejas are only allowed in those parts with another plane of existence, that life is sped up, due to a corraleja
a tradition of holding such events). concentrated, with all the dull bits removed.
And as it progressed, it was sunk in Today, Saltarin wears a black T-shirt, jeans,
committee before it could reach a vote. and his trademark sunglasses. He is easygoing,
Padilla wants to put forward more legislation, with a ready smile. He carries a large cape, you from acting decisively. If you’re not going to
but also intends to put the question to the orange on one side, purple on the other, and a act decisively, don’t do it.”
Colombian people. “We’re moving forward with long scar across his neck, a reminder of when a Saltarin is a capotero, a man who uses a
the referendum, where the citizens can decide bull was faster. I ask him what happened. “Not cape and theatricality to excite the crowd.
if these cruel spectacles can keep existing in much. Only, the bull nearly ripped my veins The metallic door clangs open and the bull
Colombia,” Padilla says. Sooner, not later, the out,” he says with a shrug and a laugh. charges. He draws the bull in, waving his cape
corralejas will be banned, she adds. Now, he joins 10 other bullfighters in front firmly, graceful and quick. The bull races
The view among many of the locals, those of the big metal door to wait for the bulls as forward. At the last moment, he steps to the
who enjoy the corralejas: it’s not for everyone, thousands look on. To step in front of the side and the bull runs through the cloak,
but it’s important to us. “I’m born into this. It’s animal, these men must overcome primal horns passing inches from Saltarin’s chest.
our thing. If you ask someone from the rest of survival instincts hardwired into our brains. The crowd cheers as he works the bull in a
the country, like Bogotá or Medellín, they may “You can’t be scared, because then you’ll fail,” flurry of twists and turns, bringing the bull in,
not like it. But this is our thing, it’s innate in us,” Saltarin says. “Fear makes you hesitate, it stops once, twice, three times.

142 A PR IL/M AY 2024

 “When you’re working the cape, it’s a dance, me,” he cackles. “It drives you to do crazy disfigured repeatedly by bulls), “the Death”
like I’m dancing with death,” he tells me. “Death things, all for the action. This addiction to (once so savagely gored the audience was
is a friend, loyal. She’s always at your side, even adrenalin is dangerous.” sure he had left this world for the next), “the
if you can’t see her.” In the ring, the complexities of modern life — Ball”, “Mandarina”. One goes by the name of
Saltarin shouts at the bull and flicks the cape bills, taxes, relationship dramas — all fade away. “Dickface” (Carechimba), and I’ve never had
again to lure it in, and again the bull charges Existence, he says, becomes as simple as ‘Will I the courage to ask him why. “Crazy Horse” is
him. Again, at the last moment he steps out of triumph, or will I fail? Am I going to live or die?’ known for his cowboy hat and his little dances
the way. The audience cheers. The bullfighters enjoy the old carnival life, in the ring. In a 2022 corraleja, a bull was too
Saltarin grew up poor on farms in the travelling from town to town to risk their quick, too strong, and brutally wounded him.
countryside. A desire for some quick cash and lives in these six-day spectacles. Beds are Doctors struggled to save his life, and to do
to impress his friends and neighbours — and a hammocks slung under the coliseum’s stands, so, sawed off his left leg. Now, Crazy Horse
taste for danger — led him to the corralejas. and breakfasts are cold beers. They go by returns to the corralejas to drink rum with his
“I don’t have adrenalin, adrenalin lives in names like “the Mask” (whose face has been old bullfighting buddies with his shiny metal

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 ‘IT’S LIKE I’M DANCING WITH DEATH’

The crowd hangs on to the

grandstand — shaking the
arena — provoking the bulls

leg. A stream of fans take selfies with him, and bullfighting uncle into the ring more than 50 “Here, we earn whatever pesos we can get —
he accommodates each request with a smile. years ago, practising with young bulls when playing with our lives. This can be a tragedy,”
This life is carved into the bodies of the he was eight years old. His choice was the he says, and chuckles. “I love the corralejas.”
bullfighters — crisscrossing scars. “Fifty-six cape, waving it back and forth in front of the This sport is too off the grid and chaotic to
gorings I’ve had,” says the Death, ugly scars violent bull. keep statistics, but deaths are common. I’m
crossing his body like a map. His life in the ring “It’s a sport because you must prepare told that nine bullfighters were killed in the
has left him only a few teeth. yourself physically,” he says. “But more than past few years. Unsurprisingly, the Suicide Men
Alvaro Nova is a rarity, one of those who that, it’s an art, like a song, like music, like a embrace the role of death in their lives. “We’re
survived long enough to retire. From the painting. They call it the ‘ballet of death’.” Nova gladiators,” says Saltarin. “The fight of a man
cosmopolitan Carta gena, he followed a retired because of the lack of steady money. against animals, the way the slaves earned their

14 4 A PR IL/M AY 2024
 ROLLING STONE

rum before an afternoon of the bulls can steel its final death at the hands of the matador.
nerves. In the ring, they pass bottles back and Here, the riders chase the bull around the ring.
forth for quick swigs. Another import from Spanish bullfighting are
“No one sober would fight the bulls. You’ve the banderillas, sticks wrapped in shredded
got to be at least tipsy so you’re less afraid of paper and topped with harpoon-shaped blades.
the bull,” says the Ball, a personable bullfighter Some bullfighters run in front of the bulls to
and one of the few whose face is not drawn in stick these in the beast’s flanks, leaving bloody
scars. “It’s always better to be a little drunk with but shallow flesh wounds. But that the bull
some rum in you.” bleeds at all is reason enough for animal-rights
Once the afternoon of bulls is over, the night advocates to call it “torture” and demand an
comes with music and dancing, and the drinks end to the corralejas.
keep flowing to now celebrate another day The wealthy cattlemen are the centre of gravity
survived. Much of the money earned during here. It’s a group of 20 or so who share bottles of
the day is spent at the bars made of wooden imported whiskey. There’s a constant back and
planks that surround the arena. Bullfighters can forth between the cattlemen and the bullfighters
be opaque about how much they earn. Rarely below as they negotiate money for each trick. A
have I received a straight answer (and maybe young man runs up and offers to do the “seat of
it’s none of my business). Some have told me death”, a dangerous trick where the man must
that the wages are constantly going down, that sit in front of a running bull and lie down at the
just more than a decade ago they could earn at last moment, and hope the bull somehow runs
least 3 million pesos (about double the monthly over him or doesn’t stop to gore him. I’ve seen
minimum wage) for six days of work, and more men mauled to death attempting this trick. The
in tips. young man demands
At 3 p m , a hu ge $60. The cattleman
firework explodes in “When I’m in the won’t pay more than
the middle of the ring, ring, I’m someone else. $20. No deal.
announcing that the From the stands,
first bull is about to The world changes. spectators toss dozens
be released. The ring I don’t know how of packs of sweets
becomes a swirling to explain it” down onto the bulls,
mass of activity. Most daring the men below
of the hundreds of to edge closer to the
men below are the so-called ducks; amateurs, beast. One man throws a wad of cash down into
there to be close to the action, to test their the ring, creating a scrum of men scrambling in
bravery. They hang from fences, they run in the cloud of bills. And if there’s ever a slowdown
front of the bull. in the pace of the afternoon, a spectator will
Everything moves fast. A bull can sprint at shoot a firework into the crowd.
35 mph. Even if you’re on the other side of The fans salute a good bull’s performance,
the ring, you’re never more than three or four his taste for the fight. The best bulls become
seconds away from an irate bull bearing down legends. “Seven Boxes” earned his name after
on you like doom itself. sending seven men to their coffins.
In the crowds, men sell to the thirsty, carrying The sport’s death toll makes the corralejas
buckets filled with ice and beer. And when the a world of ghosts. And sometimes they visit.
bull comes, they run for their lives like everyone Widows pass through the stands carrying large
else, careful not to drop a single can. Other men photos of their dead bullfighting husbands, their
carry huge publicity banners for local businesses hands out in the hopes of a little help. Today,
or politicians around the ring. old man Moises Machado is led by a young
Men dress as devils and pose for photos, man. Words on a large white collection box tell
a clown walks around shouting jokes, a man Machado’s story, of how he once fought the bulls,
freedom. This tradition starts there. The human enters the ring on his motorbike, which has a but a goring left him voiceless and crippled.

T
being against the beast.” set of horns at the front, and drives through the Back in the ring, a bull shoots out of the
crowd. And that’s the point of a corraleja: it’s metal door like a cannonball, and the audience
he corralejas are as much a this massive spectacle and everyone has their cheers. He’s tan, a large white line running
party as a sporting event, and role, be it the spectator who funds it, the ducks down the centre of his face. The bull tears
spectators and bullfighters who provide the thrills, or anyone else who through the crowd as men run, narrowing in
spend the day dr inking . wants to put on a show. on one fleeing man. Screams rise through the
Many of the bullfighters live A d oz e n m ou n te d h o r s e m e n hu d d l e crowd. A moment before the inevitable, the
in a haze of booze, starting in together. The horsemen are a key part of man puts out his hand as if that might stop the
the morning. A few shots of Spanish bullfighting, to tire the bull ahead of beast. The bull smashes into the man’s waist

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 ‘IT’S LIKE I’M DANCING WITH DEATH’

with such force it flips him in the air, his feet “Look at you! What’s our mother going to say?” Sandoval looks straight ahead, away from his
flying over his head. The blow sends him 20 feet Sheepish, Lopez lies on the medical cot as wounds. There’s terror in his eyes, and his skin
across the ring, knocking a shoe off. He lands Negrete cuts off the trouser leg. The bull’s horn greys by the second.
face first in the dirt, crumpled and motionless. has ripped open his left knee. Lopez clenches Finally, Negrete bandages the wound, an ugly
All of this occurs in seven seconds. his teeth and looks away. Blood pours out of bulge of the intestines visible under the gauze.
The bull trots to the other side of the ring while his leg. Negrete has saved his life, but Sandoval needs
men pick up the young man and carry him out. “The bull got him. It went for him three surgery if he’s going to survive. As the old man
In the medical tent next to the coliseum, the times, and he didn’t understand it was trying to is carried to the back of the ambulance, more
doctors and nurses hear the screams as the kill him,” says the sister, watching Negrete tend screams come from the ring. And the music
young man is flipped by the bull. That’s their to her brother’s leg. Her face veers between never stops for a second.
sign that a man has become a patient and is anger and concern. “It’s not the first time a
on his way. “Medical tent” is a grand term for bull almost killed him. My mother will die if as the days stretch on, the corralejas take on
four metal poles with a tarpaulin roof. Samuel she hears.” a dream state. It’s where you eat, where you
Negrete, a doctor at the local hospital, today is Negrete and the nurses clean the wound, see your friends, where you dance and listen to
running the medical team of another doctor and bandage the gash. For a nasty cut, Lopez is in music, where you drink rum until you fall asleep,
five nurses. Two ambulances are ready to go, good spirits, now laughing and winking with wake up and do it again. A dark party that never
their back doors open, their engines running. the nurses. He’s an eight-year veteran of the ends. One night, I dream of charging bulls.
The man is delivered motionless and quickly corralejas. “When you live in this world, it traps you — it’s
put on one of the medical tables. There’s “I’ll be back in a spell,” says Saltarin.
a question as to whether he’s dead or not. the ring as soon as I “You don’t focus on the
Negrete checks his signs — he’s alive and lucky, can,” he says. “Maybe “Death is hard to dead, you look away,
the bull’s horn hasn’t pierced him. As Negrete
looks the man over, crowds of people encircle
tomorrow?” He
hobbles back to the
take. To see a friend die, you look at the people
having a good time…
the tent, craning to see the day’s injured. stands to show off his gored by the bull, that’s And the party never
After five minute s, the man re gains wound and ask for tips. when you feel the fear… stops, it keeps going.”
consciousness, but is groggy and unsure where
he is. A neck brace is fitted, and he’s driven to
Over the afternoons,
the tent also tends to
It could happen to you” The Death calls it the
“devil’s party”, a dark
the local hospital. pe o ple p a s s e d ou t carnival you can never
“A normal day is five, six, seven injured. from the heat. The sun hits hard here, with leave. “The money you make here is cursed, only
They’re injured in their throats, abdomen, temperatures that hover around 100 degrees meant to be spent drinking rum.”
their heads,” says Negrete during a brief break and people crammed into the stands. One day, For some, it becomes a vortex impossible to
between patients. A common injury is men three women are brought in, passed out from escape from. The last time I saw Bravo, the man
being gored in their anuses. “It happens a lot. the heat. who jumps over the bull, he was bathing his
The man is running away from the bull and the “We live this every day in the time of the baby daughter in his house and thinking about
bull reaches him, and the part most affected is bulls,” says Negrete. retiring from the sport. “I’ve been thinking I’m
the anus. There are tears and punctures.” Negrete and the nurses sit for a break. And giving away my life for nothing,” he said. “I have
The tent provides triage — there’s a limit to then come the screams, and up they jump, to think ‘How can I help my baby if I’m dead?’”
what they can do with bandages and a couple ready for the next patient. The flow of patients Bravo would quickly spiral out of control.
of medical beds. “Sometimes they come in reminds me of the field hospital I saw outside The constant rum led him to harder drugs. The
with total cardiac arrest and die right away. If Mosul as the Iraqi army battled ISIS. money made risking his life in the ring went to
there is serious trauma to the thorax region, it’s Luis Sandoval, 62, is carried in by four men, feed his addiction. The star of the corralejas fell
sometimes impossible to save them in a setup as their arms covered by his blood. His face is pale, to living on the streets, cut off from his family.
basic as this one… There are afternoons when his shirt and jeans both drip red with blood. On Someone posted his photo on Facebook looking
there are two or three deaths.” the back of his thigh is a hole that pumps dark for any friends and family to help him. Bravo
Negrete is young and personable. He enjoys blood onto the cot. Negrete applies pressure to stands there in filthy clothes, a man lost to
the corralejas even as he’s conflicted over the the wound and finally manages to maintain a addiction, demons now in control.
price of the spectacle. “Ninety per cent who bandage over the wound. Some try to plan an exit from the corralejas,
arrive here are not the bullfighters, but the Sandoval, says a friend, was in the ring, to not let the arena win. Mandarina is one of
ducks, those who went looking for death,” hanging from the fence. The bull stopped the legends of the sport. “In bullfighting,” he
he says. “It’s frustrating — because you ask beneath him, reared itself up, and gored him says, “you want to leave this in the best way
yourself, ‘Why did they risk their life?’” then and there. possible, leaving behind the best image of
We’re interrupted by another collective Now, Negrete moves to the second wound, yourself.” He’s instantly recognisable for his
scream from the ring — another patient is on in Sandoval’s side. As he treats the dark hole, black shoulder-length curly hair, a deep scar that
his way. Sandoval’s intestines slither out, like pink cuts along his jaw, ending at his lips, a memento
Omar Lopez is carried in by his friends. He’s sausages. Negrete cups the intestines and tries of the afternoon when the bull got too close.
a young bullfighter in his twenties, his left to push them back in, but they won’t go. Those Among the rough Suicide Men, Mandarina is a
trouser leg drenched in blood. He grimaces, peering into the tent gasp at the sudden stench. gentleman, nicely turned out — jeans, a shirt,
keeping his eyes off the wound. His sister, Yuli, “His intestines have been pierced,” a nurse white trainers (the nickname comes from a
follows him. shouts. childhood job of selling the fruit on the street).

146 A PR IL/M AY 2024

 The capoteros use a
cape and theatricality
in the ring to excite
the crowd

For nearly 20 years, Mandarina and Saltarin have bulls that day. “I told Mandarina not to work cape around for a final twirl. And then he is
travelled together, brothers in the corralejas. But that afternoon. I was watching in the stands …” buried amid music and tears.
the deaths of the bullfighters haunt him. and he runs out of words. A few months later, Saltarin would lose
“Death is hard to take. To see a friend die, The bull charges out of the metal door, another companion in the corralejas, “El Mono
gored by the bull, that’s when you feel the fear. dark brown, 400 kilos of mass on a mission to Villegas”, one more death in the afternoon.
Just as it happened to him, it could happen to destroy. A bullfighter tries to work the cape, “I thought about retirement after losing two
you,” he says, thoughtful. “In this moment, but the bull charges right past him and lands friends. I was going to retire,” Saltarin says, a
I’ve got a touch of this fear in me. When you heavy into Mandarina’s chest. He’s flipped in tear rolling down his cheek. “I said that I was
face off against the bull and you feel the fear, the air, landing on his back. The bull curves leaving. No one accepted it. They insulted me.
you really know fear.” around, his head lowered, horns at the attack They called me a coward.” Rising, he gives me
Mandarina thinks on his family: his young — and repeatedly stabs Mandarina, shoving a fist bump and walks off.
daughter and son. “I’ve set up a little farm, him across the ring until he’s pinned against When I catch up with him a few months
so when I retire from the corralejas, I’ll have the fence. The audience screams in horror. later, he tells me he’s quit. “I want to change
something,” he tells me. “I don’t know when Mandarina is dead at 47. my life. I’ve left the corralejas,” he says.
that’s going to happen because I’m still young.” In between the corralejas, to raise a little “Almost all my friends have become memories.
Mandarina is one of the few who you can extra money, Mandarina was working as a I don’t want to become a memory, Toby.”
imagine in a life beyond the rum, meeting motorcycle taxi. One life where he’s a star in I feel relief. I had been haunted by my last
death in a bed at a ripe old age, far from a the ring, adored by tens of thousands, and memories of him at the corralejas: walking by
rampaging bull’s horns. another life where he ferries people around on himself after drinking with friends. He seemed
And I wish the story had ended that way. the back of his bike for 50 cents a trip. alone in the world, knowing that soon another
On the first afternoon of the corralejas in Mandarina was buried with honours in his bottle of rum will be opened, the big metal
the town of Planeta Rica, in a hellish heat, hometown, hundreds lining the streets to say door will swing wide, and a bull will charge out
Mandarina works the ring. Saltarin is in the goodbye as bullfighters and bands marched in as a man steps forward, risking all to give the
stands, a bad feeling telling him to skip the the funeral procession. One swirls Mandarina’s audience another show.

A PR IL/M AY 2024 147

 40 th Anniversary Of
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Music

A GENRE-
DEFINING
DEBUT
Jungle scene-
leader breaks
new ground on
debut album

Nia Archives
Silence is Loud
Island Records

T
he music of
Nia Archives
transcends the
rave more than most club-
rooted artists. But, ever
since her bedroom-start
breakthrough in 2020, the
DJ, producer, singer and
songwriter has imbued
her jungle heaters with
heartfelt emotion. It’s for
this reason — as well as
the TikTok-aided rise in
popularity of drum’n’bass
and jungle — that she has
become one of the UK’s
biggest names.
Having introduced a
new generation

ILLUSTRATION BY
Paris Anthony-Walker
Reviews Music

PRESSING REFRESH ON POST-PUNK

of clubgoers to the scene via her collagist
soundscapes which obliterate conventional
ideas of the genre, the long wait for the
Bradford-born, Leeds-raised artist’s debut

P
album is over, and the outcome proves OST-PUNK HAS is a soaring chorus that
it was more than worth it. Silence is Loud BECOME a loaded lifts the music out of the
boasts plenty of intense bass lines to keep term for bands — doldrums and into a place
jungle purists satisfied, but the record’s especially British ones — that sounds nothing like
intricately detailed, narrative-driven songs over the past five years. Doncaster at all.
make this a collection to be experienced in Ever since the explosion Backed by inventive,
full, from start to finish. surrounding the Brixton bright guitar music,
Building on the heart-on-sleeve terrain of Windmill scene that Fontaine discusses ideas
her third EP, Sunrise Bang Ur Head Against birthed Shame, Black Midi, around identity (“When
tha Wall, the 13-tracker is deeply personal Goat Girl, Dry Cleaning English Teacher people ask where I’m
and affecting. As alluded to in its fittingly and more, the term has from, I usually say I’m
This Could Be Texas
multi-layered title, the 24-year-old producer, been lauded and derided mixed race: half Yorkshire,
DJ, singer and songwriter may have in equal measure, as any Island Records half Lancashire,” she has
ascended to a life of headline tours, global ascendant scene tends to joked) with seriousness but
festivals, fashion shows and daytime radio do. Leeds’ English Teacher also levity. This moulding
plays, but that doesn’t mean it’s all glitz and of different sounds and
glamour. Sometimes, spending time alone moods is also reflected in
can often be more challenging than being the music: after the solemn
in a room full of people. The loneliness and surging ‘Broken
that follows a massive show or career-high Biscuits’, they move
moment can feel like an elevator crashing to straight into the Smiths-
the floor. esque sprightly indie-pop
The spiralling screams of the album’s of ‘I’m Not Crying, You’re
opening title track, which makes a great Crying’. Fontaine is equally
if unlikely pairing of jungle and gloomy magnetic on the acoustic
Britpop, channel this dichotomy of slowie ‘Mastermind
melancholy and euphoria perfectly. Fellow Specialism’, while debut
sad banger ‘Crowded Roomz’ has the same single ‘R&B’ still sounds as
impact thanks to its rippling guitar riffs and fresh as ever as she laughs
ominous piano keys. Both tracks are sure to at assumptions made about
resonate with anyone struggling with their her genre of choice based
mental health. on her skin colour.
While Archives spends time in reflective While ‘R&B’ represents
mode, elsewhere the record is full of songs the band’s post-punk roots,
about love and heartbreak. Sequenced the most exciting moments
early on, the acoustic guitar strums and of the album come when it
singalong chorus of ‘Cards on the Table’ pushes forwards into new
conjure the type of infatuated pop song sounds and moods. The
that you might hear on a summer holiday excellent ‘The Best Tears of
— just with added jungle breaks. ‘Tell Me Your Life’ sees her vocals
What It’s Like’, contrastingly, channels her twisted and manipulated
frustration with an uncaring love interest, by subtle Auto-Tune as the
while the brilliant, relatable opening line of band concoct a Radiohead-
‘Nightmares’ — “All of my friends hate you / ish swirl of noise behind her,
To be fair I do too” — recalls the razor-sharp while closer ‘Albert Road’ is
pen of early Lily Allen. a gorgeous slow jam and an
The album’s biggest surprise, however, have been tagged under it’s almost identical to ode to her hometown.
is the reprise of ‘Silence is Loud’, which the umbrella since their Doncaster,” enigmatic This Could Be Texas
demonstrates a raw vulnerability not emergence in 2021, and vocalist Lily Fontaine said presents an exciting
LIBERTINES: ED COOKE; YARD ACT: AARON PARSONS

unlike Adele. By stripping away the backing while it’s been a fairly of the album, and while new voice in a saturated
production and leaving just poignant piano accurate description so the record does indulge scene, one they deserve to
ENGLISH TEACHER: TATIANA POZUELO; THE

keys, the gear change affords Nia the space far, their far-reaching and in ideas of mundanity, it’s graduate from as a band
to showcase the range of her vocal. impressive debut album also determined to break with limitless potential.
By using jungle music as the core This Could Be Texas should away from it. “I’m the Across the album, English
foundation, but weaving in diaristic, often ensure they won’t be world’s biggest paving slab / Teacher sing of home and
heart-stirring lyricism and elements of other purely remembered for So watch your fucking feet!” of being stuck, but the
disparate genres (there’s even a flute on ‘Out this moment alone. she sing-speaks on the glorious noise they create
of Options’), Nia Archives breaks the rules “I want this album to album’s best track, ‘The makes you believe they
time and again to build a sonic world of her feel like you’ve gone to World’s Biggest Paving could go anywhere.
own. BEN JOLLEY space, and it turns out Slab’, but what follows WILL RICHARDS

150 | Rolling Stone ★★★★★ Classic | ★★★★ Excellent | ★★★ Good | ★★ Fair | ★ Poor RATINGS ARE SUPERVISED BY THE EDITORS OF ROLLING STONE UK
THE MELLOWING OF LASTING
THE LIKELY LADS IMPRESSION
S ‘I
ERENITY. PEACE AND love. They’re all STARTED LYNKS AS
adjectives you wouldn’t associate with almost a novelty
the famously tumultuous fortunes of The thing,” the gimp-
Libertines, but on their fourth album it seems like masked pop powerhouse
the Likely Lads have finally mellowed. told Rolling Stone UK last Lynks
Peter Doherty, a mainstay of the noughties year. “Now, I’m not just a Abomination
tabloids, has found something close to domestic clown,” they added, “I am a Heavenly Recordings
bliss after hunkering down in France with his clown, but I’m also a clown
wife and young child and ditching hard drugs for, that makes banging dance
according to the man himself, posh cheese instead. music. It’s a nice realisation
The rest of the band, meanwhile, have been to come to, and writing some songs that were a bit more
The Libertines
ploughing their efforts into The Albion Rooms, emotional than, for example, ‘How to Make a Bechamel
their Margate hotel and recording studio. All Quiet on the Sauce In 10 Steps’, really helped and they still resonated
Carl Barât told Rolling Stone UK last year: “At Eastern Esplanade with people.”
this time, we’re in the best possible place I think Casablanca and While humour is a vital and irreplaceable part of Lynks’
we can be.” Republic Records music, long-awaited debut album Abomination delivers on
As a result of all of the above, All Quiet on the this promise and presents them as a genuinely brilliant pop
Eastern Esplanade is a complete riot which sees star instead of a novelty act. These two forms work best
them leaning into the ramshackle charm of their when they’re presented in tandem: opening track ‘Use It or
early highs. On the lead single ‘Run Run Run’, the group firmly look back at their Lose It’ discusses hookups in your twenties with outlandish
noughties infamy, crying over garage rock guitars: “You’d better run, run, run boy / humour (“it’s gotta be a 12-month hot girl summer”), but also
Faster than the past / Through the looking glass.” addresses ageist ideas around gay sex. In ‘Tennis Song’,
Similarly, Doherty’s obsession with the concept of Albion (the Old English they recount unrequited love with a straight tennis coach
term for Great Britain) is given an interesting spin on ‘Merry Old England’, which (“You made a gay boy love sports / That’s not easy to do”) and
tackles the refugee crisis and, by extension, social issues in a way that the group unfulfilling dating app sex on ‘(What Did You Expect From)
have never managed before. Sex with A Stranger’.
For fans of their softer side, meanwhile, ‘Night of the Hunter’ often feels like Abomination pushes Lynks into new territory musically
the sonic sequel to fan favourite ‘Music When the Lights Go Out’. as well as lyrically. The filthy, bassy hooks are still here in
There’s no reinvention of the wheel to be found here, but The Libertines have abundance, but ‘Tennis Song’ and ‘Lucky’ are lo-fi gems,
taken the DNA of their noughties heyday and injected it with an all-important while closer ‘Flash in the Pan’ is a giddy and bright indie-
modern gaze and a dose of personal perspective. Crucially, it’s really fun. Die- pop smash. This is an album that loses none of Lynks’
hard fans will lap it up. NICK REILLY trademark filth and charm while adding crucial extra depth
and nuance. WILL RICHARDS

ACE, TOP, MINT, BOSS… debut saw the group wrongly pigeonholed as the latest in
a long line of post-punk revival champions, this latest
record proves that they’re a far greater creative

S
INCE RELEASING THEIR debut album The proposition than that.
Overload, Yard Act have scaled the heights that Instead, Where’s My Utopia? is packed with
any fledgling band would bite your hand off bangers. ‘We Make Hits’ — perhaps the most
for. A collaboration with Elton John, sell-out tours and direct example of the record’s soul-searching
scoring a Mercury Prize nomination for their debut mantra — bounds along with an 80s dance groove.
are just a few of these. And Smith’s central refrain on ‘Dream Job’: “Ace!
But success, as frontman James Smith notes on their Top! Mint! Boss!” has already become the band’s
second album Where’s My Utopia?, doesn’t necessarily unofficial catchphrase for the coming year.
translate to happiness. Instead, as that title suggests, it’s Running through all of it is the subtle strain
a record written through the eyes of Smith as he searches of positivity that runs deep in the band’s DNA.
for a sense of fulfilment. As a result, there’s soul- On closer ‘A Vineyard for the North’, their
searing honesty on the brooding ‘Petroleum’, spiritual successor to first album standout ‘100%
which was inspired by the time when Smith Endurance’, the group use climate change as a
turned on an audience at Butlins in early 2023 Yard Act framing device to show why we should all keep
after experiencing burn-out from intense touring. dancing through the darkness.
Where’s My Utopia?
Similarly, ‘Down by the Stream’ sees Smith turn his All considered, it’s an album that feels like a real
Island Records
gaze on his childhood in a tune peppered with an step up and one that broadens the possibilities of
unexpected hip-hop groove. Yard Act’s brilliantly wonky sound. It’s ace, top,
That groove, in fact, defines album two. If their mint and, indeed, boss… NICK REILLY

April/May 2024 | Rolling Stone | 151

TV
Sawai stars as
Toda Mariko,
Blackthorne’s star-
crossed lover

SHŌGUN IS FX’S GAME OF THRONES

Rachel Kondo and Justin Marks’ towering epic about closer to Game of Thrones
Shogun than to anything FX has
a foreigner in feudal Japan is absolutely stunning NETWORK Disney+ done in the past.

J
AIR DATE New episodes The story still begins
ames Clavell’s his country’s ruling class. majority of the dialogue releasing from Blackthorne’s point
epic historical This NBC version did is in subtitled Japanese, every Tuesday of view, as his damaged
novel Shōgun not feature subtitles, so and it treats Blackthorne STARRING Hiroyuki Sanada ship winds up in a port
Cosmo Jarvis
was first adapted the Japanese dialogue (played here by Cosmo Anna Sawai controlled by Toranaga.
for television back in was only translated in Jarvis) and Toranaga Tadanobu Asano He has come to plunder a
1980. It starred Richard scenes where characters (Hiroyuki Sanada) at least Shinnosuke Abe land populated by, as he
Fumi Nikaidô
Chamberlain as John were interpreting as narrative equals, if puts it, “a savage horde”,
Blackthorne, an English for Blackthorne. The not making Toranaga the and is startled to learn that
sailor who gets caught producers treated Clavell’s central character. it has shaped Toranaga, the Japanese consider him
up in a Japanese civil war three-dimensional Adapted by Rachel Blackthorne’s translator, a disgusting barbarian.
in the early 1600s, and Japanese characters as Kondo and Justin Marks, Toda Mariko (Anna Sawai), In time, he recognises
Japanese-cinema legend exotic supporting players this new Shōgun digs deep and everyone else we the many ways that life
Toshirô Mifune as Yoshi in a white man’s story. into the Japanese culture meet along the way. It in Japan is superior to
Toranaga, a feudal lord The new FX adaptation of the period, and the is beautiful to look at, the world he left behind,
at odds with the rest of knows better. The many complicated ways operating on a scale much like regular bathing. But

152 | Rolling Stone | April/May 2024

 Sanada is
Yoshii Toranaga,
a feudal lord

Cosmo Jarvis
stars as
Blackthorne

The cast is wonderful. stunning, massive set brought from Europe.

Sanada’s charisma and pieces, like an earthquake Mariko has converted
intense stillness makes that wrecks one of the to Catholicism, and
it wholly believable that armies at an inopportune is uncomfortable
Toranaga is a brilliant moment. There’s the hearing the Protestant
strategist who is always star-crossed love story Blackthorne curse out the
five moves ahead of his between Mariko and representatives of her faith.
many enemies. Sawai Blackthorne, complicated Toranaga, who needs her
speaks volumes with every feuds between the various to stay close to this unlikely
pained look on Mariko’s Japanese lords and ally, asks if her loyalty to
face. As duplicitous warrior vassals, interference from God would be in conflict
Yabushige, Tadanobu Catholic missionaries from with her service to him.
Asano entertainingly Portugal, and more. The Mariko replies that this
he also learns that the seppuku for seemingly channels the Seven series occasionally loses would be an issue if she
nationwide dedication to minor offences. Mariko Samurai-era Mifune. its grip on some threads, were just a Christian, “but I
honour at all costs cuts warns John not to be Jarvis’s performance is but on the whole does a have more than one heart.”
both ways, inspiring great fooled by everyone’s deliberately bigger, but that beautiful job of translating This Shōgun has many
deeds of heroism and polite demeanour, and only underlines how alien this huge story to the hearts, and many points of
sacrifice, but also baffling, he slowly recognises that he is in this beautiful place. screen. It even succeeds view, rather than fixating
at times monstrous her own life is a constant The Clavell book at making Mariko’s gift on the simplistic stranger-
KATIE YU/FX, 2

behaviour when people struggle due to questions has epic sweep, which for freestyle poetry seem in-a-strange-land story
feel compelled to commit of honour and a woman’s the show takes pains as potent a weapon as from the 80s. It’s terrific.
the ritual suicide of role in society. to recreate. There are the cannons Blackthorne ALAN SEPINWALL

April/May 2024 | Rolling Stone | 153

Clarence (LaKeith
Stanfield) and
Varinia (Anna Diop)
in The Book of
Clarence

THE SECOND COMING

most of the supporting
The Book of roles remain just that: this
Clarence is Clarence’s show. Jesus
himself is rarely seen, and
STARRING
Anna Diop, LaKeith it’d be a minor spoiler to
Stanfield, Omar Sy say who plays him.
In search of a better life, a contemporary of Jesus DIRECTED BY Jeymes Samuel The Book of Clarence
decides to become a messiah in The Book of Clarence stands on its own as

COURTESY OF PARKLAND PICTURES; MOTHERS' INSTINCT: ALYSSA LONGCHAMP; DRIFT: NIKOS

a comedy-drama with

THE BOOK OF CLARENCE: © 2023 LEGENDARY ENTERTAINMENT; THE TROUBLE WITH JESSICA:
engaging characters and

B
ritish musician take on faith and race also Jesus’s fame, he decides David Oyelowo plays an emotive narrative, but
Jeymes Samuel, won praise from liberal the best way to make a John the Baptist, who has it’s probably best enjoyed
aka The Bullitts, Christians when it came fortune is to pretend to little time for Clarence’s by those vaguely familiar
announced himself as a out in the US earlier this be a messiah. But he can games, while Omar Sy with the Bible, regardless
bold filmmaking talent year. Samuel — who is only get so far with his makes for a brilliant of their beliefs. Samuel
with 2021’s The Harder Seal’s younger brother con-artist skills when his Barabbas and Brit Michael has put a lot of thought,
They Fall, a revisionist — composed his own enemies include Jedidiah Ward is Judas Iscariot. detail and knowledge of
Western featuring Idris score, and weaves in well- the Terrible (Eric Kofi- Benedict Cumberbatch the New Testament into
Elba, Regina King and chosen songs from artists Abrefa) and Pontius Pilate has a small but significant his screenplay, using
LaKeith Stanfield. He puts including Shabba Ranks ( James McAvoy). With a role. Alfre Woodard familiar characters to play
Stanfield centre stage and producer JAY-Z. majority Black cast, this brings her usual gravitas with tropes and to make
in The Book of Clarence, Stanfield brings heart makes a wry statement as the Virgin Mary, while a point. It might seem
a ballsy riff on an even and humour as Clarence, about the white-washed Teyana Taylor plays like an unlikely story to
more old-fashioned a contemporary of Jesus Biblical epics of past the rather less virginal come from the pen of
genre: the Biblical epic. who scrapes a living out decades, as well as Mary Magdalene. With a Londoner, but then
It’s a riotous ride with of con tricks and petty opening up opportunities other key female roles — like Clarence himself —
NIKOLOPOULOS

obvious comparisons to crime. He’s a smart to explore racial and filled by Anna Diop and Samuel definitely has the
the likes of The Life of guy who makes stupid class tensions (the Roman Marianne Jean-Baptiste, power to surprise. 19 APRIL
Brian, but its thoughtful decisions. Envious of soldiers are white). it’s a fantastic cast, though ANNA SMITH

154 | Rolling Stone | April/May 2024 ★★★★★ Classic | ★★★★ Excellent | ★★★ Good | ★★ Fair | ★ Poor
 UNBREAKABLE BOND
ANNE HATHAWAY AND Jessica Chastain are
Mothers’ a match made in Hollywood heaven, and
Instinct
they’re both well suited to playing wealthy
STARRING
Jessica Chastain, mothers who might just have a dark side.
Anne Hathaway And so Mothers’ Instinct has a lot going for it
DIRECTED BY from the off, as the talented twosome play
Benoît Delhomme close friends in 60s suburbia, complete with
cocktail-swilling dinner parties and identikit
husbands who go off to work every morning
in their suits, leaving the ladies at home in their dresses and heels.
While Céline (Hathaway) seems happy to play housewife, Alice
Indira Varma plays (Chastain) misses her career. But all their lives are turned upside
the uninvited down after a tragic accident, and the two women are pulled apart
guest, Jessica
in a cycle of grief and blame. The movie then shifts from a drama
into thriller territory.

GUESS WHO’S COMING TO DINNER

Mothers’ Instinct is based on the French language film Duelles,
directed by Olivier Masset-Depasse, which in turn was inspired by
Mothers’ Instinct: A Novel of Suspense by Barbara Abel. It’s a slick and
thought-provoking watch that is ultimately more disturbing than
YOU KNOW WHAT it’s like when someone thrilling, but it’s well worth seeing for the powerhouse performances
The Trouble
with Jessica brings an unwelcome guest to a dinner party from two actors at the top of their game. 27 MARCH ANNA SMITH
— barbed comments, boozing, dead bodies…
STARRING
Shirley Henderson, OK, that last part is the invention of British
Alan Tudyk director Matt Winn, who has co-written this
DIRECTED BY darkly witty comedy lampooning middle-
Matt Winn class, middle-aged angst. He’s assembled a
terrific cast: Shirley Henderson is wickedly
brilliant as Sarah, a seemingly respectable
mother who will apparently do anything to protect the upcoming sale
of the home she shares with Tom (Alan Tudyk) and their family. Their
best friends are Beth (Olivia Williams) and Richard (Rufus Sewell),
a couple with seemingly contrasting moral codes. The unwelcome
guest is Jessica (Indira Varma), an unstable friend of Beth’s who has
history with everyone in the room. Some of the film’s tension revolves
around revealing the nature of that history — the rest revolves around
a group of supposedly intelligent people making terrible choices
involving a dead body. While that part of the scenario may be hard to
Anne Hathaway and
swallow, the characters and their reactions feel frighteningly, often
Jessica Chastain
frustratingly, real. The Trouble with Jessica isn’t an easy watch but it’s as best friends in
a smart and funny one with excellent performances from a top British Mothers’ Instinct
cast. 5 APRIL ANNA SMITH

LIFE ON THE EDGE OF SOCIETY

CYNTHIA ERIVO PLAYS Jacqueline, a refugee in this compassionate
Drift character study set on a Greek island. The camera follows her closely,
STARRING showing the details of her daily routine while gradually revealing her
Cynthia Erivo, traumatic backstory. Lonely, penniless and proud, she secretly sleeps
Alia Shawkat
in a cave and pretends to be a tourist, or a masseur, depending on
DIRECTED BY
Anthony Chen who she’s speaking to. It’s a compelling exercise in empathy, inviting
us to relate to those who are judged for being forced to live life on the
fringes. But it’s also a story of hope and kindness. Alia Shawkat puts
Cynthia Erivo in a lovely, charismatic performance as a sympathetic tour guide who
(right) with
makes friends with Jacqueline, as does Honor Swinton Byrne in a smaller role. Meanwhile,
co-star Alia
Shawkat Erivo, fresh from an impressive turn in Luther: The Fallen Sun, continues to prove her
versatility and talent with a riveting central performance. 29 MARCH ANNA SMITH

April/May
Month 20XX
2024 | Rolling Stone | 155
 STYLE
Track record
Founder and creative director of
Palm Angels Francesco Ragazzi
said at his Spring/Summer 24
show, “Whenever I design a
collection, I always think of
our (skater) community and its WHAT WE WANT AND
cultural contribution.” Ragazzi
has continued this ethos in his WHAT WE NEED
designs for the new season while
BY JOSEPH KOCHARIAN
also exploring the evolution of the
brand. The Palm Angels’ logo and
monogram, which is in ‘continuous
updating’ mode, goes from macro
to micro, and has been paired with palm leaf
prints. Denim has a high profile in the SS24 collection, with
workwear and leisure hybrid styles given a new, overdyed
finish that mimics brush strokes. Palm Angels’ staples have
had an update too: its beloved tracksuit now features linen
and a cotton piqué embossed effect, while its regular denim-
coloured chambray and satin printed pieces now include
animalier, paisley and colour-block designs. And for finishing
touches, the Georgina Bag and the PA 4 sneakers complete the
streetwear aesthetic. Like the city of Los Angeles, Palm Angels
is continuing to evolve while keeping its core visuals and the
values of LA’s streetwear subcultures alive.
palmangels.com

Thrash it out
Palace has teamed up with legendary
skateboard magazine Thrasher
for its latest range. The collab
collection features a co-
branded logo that unites the
Thrasher font synonymous
Precious cargo with the publication and
In Versace’s Spring/Summer 24 collection, the iconic Palace flame.
the humble cargo pant is entering accessory The capsule includes a
territory in the form of the Versace Cargo black nylon jacket, crew-
Bag. Just like the infamous trousers, the neck knitted sweaters,
messenger-style bag features multiple hoodies, classic tees,
pockets, with three detachable pouches beanies, trucker caps and
that you can mix and match, while its a duffel backpack — all of
adjustable strap offers various carrying which would land perfectly
options. Crafted from high-sheen leather on either the skate ramps
in monochrome shades, with hand-painted of San Francisco, or under
edges and subtle Versace logo placements, it’s the arches in London, where
a quintessentially Versace take on the cargo Thrasher and Palace were
pant classic. founded.
versace.com palaceskateboards.com

156 | Rolling Stone | April/May 2024

 Boxing clever
The iconic Burberry knit check pattern and its Equestrian
Knight motif have found their way onto the British brand’s
latest sneakers. The Leather and Check Knit box trainers
come in two different designs in hazy hues of Daffodil,
Knight, Baby Neon, Black, White, Primrose and Salt Check
(pictured) that feel as fresh as the first blossoms of the
season. The Italian-made Leather and Check Knit Box
sneakers have mesh-lined features, while barbed-wire
hardware on the laces and rubber soles harden the trainers’
aesthetic and inject a little 90s cool.
burberry.com

Art on your sleeve

Uniqlo’s graphic T-shirt brand UT has launched its first
collection from its partnership with the Tate, which
began in 2016. Curated by Tate includes pieces featuring
artwork from four artists in the Tate’s collection: Bob and
Roberta Smith, known for his brightly coloured ‘slogan’
art; printmaker Nicholas Monro, who was inspired by the
Pop Art movement; abstract artist Wilhelmina Barns-
Graham, and sculptor and contemporary artist Alexander
Calder. Their works have been chosen because they
embody the spirit of play, an ethos of the partnership
which has evolved over the years with a series of
programmes to invite people of all ages to get creative,
learn and explore art.
uniqlo.com

Get
your
kicks
The new
L003 2K24
trainer celebrates
Lacoste’s flair for
sportswear. The
2K24 is a technical
dream, including an
elevated lightweight
running-inspired design,
special anti-slip spikes that
keep you grounded, a comfortable
EVA midsole and TPU reinforcement.
There’s plenty of detail on the footwear
too, such as a multi-panelled upper of
mesh, suede and a synthetic leather
overlay. The dual colourways include
a nod to Lacoste’s ongoing tennis
love affair with a classic white/green
combination, as well as yellow/black,
orange/green and a refined white/red/
blue. The beloved crocodile features too
of course. The French brand is a master at
having one foot in its archive and one in the contemporary
world, which is no more evident than in their campaign,
which stars critically acclaimed musician J.I.D.
lacoste.com
Shires and Isbell
at their Tennessee
home in August,
before launching
separate solo tours
this fall

SPOTLIGHT
BY
JOSEPH KOCHARIAN

Field day
Scottish luxury brand Johnstons of Elgin is staying close to
its roots by turning to nature for inspiration for its unisex
Pre-Spring 2024 collection. The Tonal Transitions range has
been influenced by the energy and light of golden oat fields,
bringing forth a fresh, natural colour palette with pops of
burnt orange and breezy blues, as well as beautiful ombres
that evoke an early-morning sunrise. The aim of the line is
to create a sumptuously soft range whose versatility reflects
the changing seasons of the beautiful Scottish countryside.
There’s plenty to drape and layer, with classic, slouchy
cashmere pieces, including a crochet and cable cashmere
cardigan, as well as houndstooth and plain balmacaan wool
coats, check prints and marl tops and skirts that show off
the brand’s pedigree in crafting clothes.
johnstonsofelgin.com

158 | Rolling Stone | April/May 2024

 Style

LUXURY
ACCESSORIES
BY
JOSEPH KOCHARIAN

Future nostalgia
Prada, always light years ahead with
everything it creates, has reinvigorated
its eyewear range with innovative
design. The ultra-light runway
sunglasses display a futuristic aesthetic,
with semi-rimless frames and slick,
soft curves to counter the rectangular
lenses. The peach tones cohere
beautifully with the Spring/Summer
24 menswear ready-to-wear collection,
which mixes a softer colour palette
and billowing shapes with tougher
silhouettes. prada.com
MAKEUP BY ELVIRE ROUX AT CAROL HAYES USING MERIT MAKEUP AND
WORDS & STYLING BY JOSEPH KOCHARIAN; PHOTOGRAPHY BY EDDIE
BLAGBROUGH; MODEL: SHELDON AT SELECT MODELS; HAIR AND

HAIR BY SAM MCKNIGHT; FASHION ASSISTANT: AARON PANDHER

FAVOURITE THINGS

BB0192S rectangular-frame sunglasses, Bronson aviator tortoiseshell-acetate Maydela sun sunglasses, £325,
£360, by Balenciaga at Selfridges sunglasses, £320, by Tom Ford at Moscot

April/May 2024 | Rolling Stone | 159

 RS Range Rover Sport SV

ROAD I
have no for the (already
intention of sold-out) Edition One
robbing a specification you see

TEST
bank, officer. here. Though it’s a
Absolutely bit chicken and egg,
not. Nothing I guess, as without
to see here, please robbing a bank most
move along. of us aren’t going to
However, entirely have the readies for
hypothetically you this set of wheels in
understand, were the first place.
I to succumb to That said, it’s
A two-and-a-half tonne SUV the temptation of the same money
ill-gotten gains, then you’d need for an
that doubles as a supercar the new Range Rover Aston Martin DBX,
Sport SV would Bentley Bentayga
may sound unlikely, but so likely be both a) the or Lamborghini
expansive is the bandwidth of perfect getaway Urus, each similarly
car — four adults specified and
the new Sport SV that Range in comfort, plenty (variously) as
of room for the capable, as well
Rover has delivered just that loot, will outrun any assembled and as
panda car across any quick. So maybe
terrain — and b) the it’s less about if you
requisite opportunity could, and more
to launder north of about if you should.
£180k in exchange To which (spoiler

160 | Rolling Stone | April/May 2024

 QUICK STATS suspension, where there’s no body roll,
regular anti-roll bars no nose lift under
POWER
go in the bin to be hard acceleration
626BHP
replaced by four and no sense of
TORQUE
dampers connected major weight transfer
553LB/FT
diagonally by 25 under hard, hard
0-60MPH
metres of pipework. braking. I see beyond
3.6 SECS
Me neither, but let 200 kph on the
TOP SPEED
me explain the net main straight, but
180MPH
effect… instead of a sense of
RANGE
On broken roads, impending doom, I’m
276G/KM
in standard Comfort just excited to barrel
PRICE
mode, all about is into corners, point
£171,405
alert), the answer is The Sport model, calm and surprisingly the nose and get
LANDROVER.CO.UK
an emphatic yes. And as the name refined. Switch to the throttle on at the
here’s why. suggests, is a slightly Dynamic mode first opportunity. It’s
The Range more sporting take £6,900 if you wish, and the steering a video game made
Rover has, forever, on the full-fat Rangie with brakes to match is meatier, the car real.
been the first and formula, oft-favoured for £7,000 more). noticeably more And then, should
most convincing by footballers and/ And the SV doesn’t roll-resistant. But you wish (and as I
of the high-end, or their wives and flatter to deceive — in SV mode the car did), you can simply
multi-purpose, girlfriends. But it’s a beneath the (also drops 25mm, knows drive off-track,
go-anywhere, two-and-a-half tonne carbon-fibre) bonnet you want to play ball even off-road, and
do-anything SUVs. 4x4, so it’s a matter is a BMW-sourced, and — in the unlikely glide serenely
Others, individually, of degree — there’s 4.4-litre, twin-turbo surrounds of the home as though
may squeak it on only so much sport V8 pushing out 626 Portimão racetrack nothing unruly had
performance, or you can add. Until horses that move — this sportiest of happened. Switch
luxury, or supercar now, that is. Because this leviathan from Sports crosses the on the extraordinary
brand status, but it’s fair to say the new 0-62mph in 3.8 boundary from SUV Body and Soul seats
none has quite the Range Rover Sport seconds and on to to supercar, however (so extraordinary
bandwidth of a SV rewrites a number 180 mph. unlikely that may we’ll come back to
Range Rover. It is of laws, those of But more clever sound. them for a future
supreme off-road, physics among them. and more impressive I’m two laps or piece all their own)
sublime on it, has The visual clues than any of that is more in before that use music
a unique, classless are there: a deeper the car’s deportment I recalibrate all producer-honed
cachet all its own front end newly — how it carries the that’s going on and technology to vibrate
and, simply put, can wearing side vents, dual challenges of remember I’m driving and resonate along
do more, more of the quad tailpipes out performance and a Range Rover. with your chosen
time. It’s a Swiss army back and swollen weight using a basket What’s happening music, and all is right
knife of a thing, if rear arches to house of tech including beneath is delivering with the world.
the Swiss army were 23-inch wheels four-wheel steering, a a driving experience Like I say, officer,
based out of Fortnum (made of carbon quicker steering rack that’s borderline nothing to see here.
and Mason. fibre for a further and what’s called 6D discombobulating — DARREN STYLES

April/May 2024 | Rolling Stone | 161

Sharleen
Spiteri
The Texas singer on doing exactly what she
wants after 35 years in music, and the
importance of following your instincts

What keeps you going and in the porn shop, but I was with
excited to make music after all a friend of mine in Soho, and he
these years? said, “Listen, you’ve got to see
I’m not scared of long pauses. something.” He pulled the curtain
They don’t scare you. You’re back from the door of this shop,
sometimes geared to think: ‘I need and there was this photograph
to fill that space, and I need to be that Sean Ellis had taken of me for
there, or I need to do this.’ But the Texas/Wu Tang sleeve when
I’ve got very good at going, “I’ll go it’s just my face. That was on the
and do that, but I won’t do that.” wall, and they were playing Texas
And not being in that place when in there. I thought that’s the best
you’re thinking, ‘I want to make thing, and I just loved it.
everybody like me.’ Instead, being And what about the most
like ‘I don’t give a flying fuck!’ unlikely Texas fan you’ve
It’s a liberating and free encountered?
place to be in life, to get great Everyone that comes up to me and
enjoyment from what you’ve tells me they’re a fan of my music.
actually achieved and also That takes a lot of guts as a fan of
what other people around you other people, that little bit of you duet, which was fantastic. We did the centre, and that was a great
have achieved. Because even if that says, ‘I hope they’re not going a documentary a few years ago understanding of the places
something’s not your bag, you to be horrible.’ I always feel very too, which was interesting because we come from. Glasgow is a
know it’s not all plain sailing, and thankful for what anybody says to RZA was telling me about Method place of shipbuilding too, and
there’s an understanding of how me, when they tell me they’re a Man’s lyrics and how he rapped we shared this kind of working-
hard it can be. fan. Oh, and Glastonbury last year! about bottles of rum because he class understanding. We’re poles
Your new album with Spooner I was totally overwhelmed by that, thought everyone Scottish was a apart in backgrounds, but there’s
Oldham, The Muscle Shoals because we were playing before pirate! I fell about laughing. parallels within it, and that’s what
Sessions, arrives on 29 March. Royal Blood and Arctic Monkeys, Every few years, something makes a lot of friendships.
What would you choose: a and there was a young crowd there will come up, and we’ll always What’s the one bit of advice
number one album or Arsenal for that. I thought they wouldn’t run into each other. It’s a nice you’d give to someone who
winning the league? know Texas records, but they did, friendship to have because it was just starting out in the
A number one! Are you joking?! It’s and it was quite the moment for us. seems very unlikely, but I guess music business?
funny because my first football strip I wanted to ask you about your there’s something similar in them I’d never presume to give anybody
was actually West Ham, and coming enduring friendship with coming from Staten Island and any advice, but the one thing
to north London for the first time Wu-Tang’s Method Man and us coming from Glasgow. We I would say is, “If you’ve got a
as a Celtic fan, it was [Celtic and RZA, which stems from when met when we played with Public bad feeling about something, get
Arsenal footballer] Charlie Nicholas you performed with Method Man Enemy at Glasgow Barrowlands, the fuck out!” Because normally
who drew me to Arsenal. I’m just at the Brits back in 1998. and RZA said he just got the you’re right. I’ve done things that
happy that we’re doing so bloody It’s the kind of friendship that city. He said he understood the somebody’s talked me into and
good at the moment. pops up every now and again. idea of being on the outside, wondered why I did that. Make
JULIAN BROAD

What’s the weirdest place you’ve They played Glasgow last year, because of where Staten Island sure that you stand by it too, and
heard a Texas song played? and I went on stage with them to is. He said you have to push you don’t blame someone else for
In a porn shop. I wasn’t actually perform our ‘Say What You Want’ yourself forward to get into making that decision. NICK REILLY

162 | Rolling Stone | April/May 2024

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