A Conversation with Bob Geldof – HuffPost 9.19.14

BG: We grouped up about a year ago actually for the Isle Of Wight festival which, along with Glastonbury, are the two big festivals here. It was weird, though. Like everybody I said, “I’ll never do that.” The solo thing I’ve got going was doing great, I brought out a record called How To Compose Popular Songs That Will Sell or something and it did very well. It got awards and all that stuff and I was touring that. Then two of the Rats came and said, “Look, would you think about doing this?” and I said, “Look, we’ve talked about this before.” If the past is another country it’s not one that I wish to visit. I lost my passport a long time ago. You can’t revisit old glories; they turn out to be not so glorious really, revisited. But they said, “Look, we’ve got this offer for the Isle of Wight.” The Isle Of Wight isn’t where I popped my rock ‘n’ roll cherry, but I saw Hendrix and The Doors and The Who and Leonard Cohen and all of these amazing people in 1969-70 with hundreds of thousands of others. Suddenly, my vanity was piqued. Playing on that legendary stage–I wasn’t going to do that a solo thing. I think the regrouping came about because of vanity, curiosity and cash. The vanity with the Isle of Wight, the curiosity was, “Were we any good? Was that all bulls**t? Was that me shooting off as usual?” And the cash was always handy. I said if it felt like pantomime, if it felt like nostalgia, I wouldn’t do it, and they said, “Okay, well let’s give it a try.”

A Conversation with Finch’s Nate Barcalow – HuffPost 9.19.14

Mike Ragogna: Back To Oblivion is the title to your new album. It’s been nine years since your last intended studio album, so that title seems a bit ominous considering the band’s breakups and reformations, no? Nate Barcalow: It’s a little deeper than that. As we were writing the record, the word oblivion would become […]

A Conversation with Sérgio Mendes – HuffPost 9.9.14

Mike Ragogna: Sérgio, your new album is titled Magic. What kind of magic went into creating and choosing the material as well as recording it?

Sérgio Mendes: Well, the whole process for me was very magical. I call this projectThe Magic of Encounters. I think it has to do with our lives as well, because when I think about my life, my whole journey, to still be making music with incredible people and to be performing, that’s kind of magical. So this album was like that. To write songs with people like John Legend and Maria Gadú and Janelle Monae and will.i.am again… It’s really the beautiful encounters that I’ve had all my life, going back to 1962 when I came to Carnegie Hall for the bossa nova concert, meeting Antônio Carlos Jobim, doing an album with Cannonball Adderley, touring with Frank Sinatra, doing specials with Fred Astaire, all of those things have been for me the magic of the encounter. I think it’s a beautiful way to describe my life. This album is about that.

A Conversation with Starset’s Dustin Bates – HuffPost 9.9.14

Mike Ragogna: Dustin, your band’s debut album Transmissions includes the hit “My Demons” as well as other potential rock radio favorites. Were you surprised by its success right out of the box? Dustin Bates: To be entirely honest, I actually wasn’t surprised. Don’t take that as arrogance, though. I was just confident in the record and thought […]

A Conversation with Vance Joy – HuffPost 9.8.14

Mike Ragogna: So what’s with all this about Dream Your Life Away stuff?

Vance Joy: That’s the title I came up with, just because it describes my experience of starting to write songs. Going down that path is a bit unorthodox; most people start and say, “Oh, you know what, I can’t do that.” I’d been doing University and other things but I’d written a couple songs because it was a dream I had been keeping secret; doing music. About a year and a half ago I decided to take the plunge and pursue that dream and I’m really glad that I did because I’m on this path at the moment that’s really exciting and surreal.

A Conversation with Loudon Wainwright III – HuffPost 9.8.14

Mike Ragogna: You’ve got a new album, Haven’t Got The Blues Yet and it looks like you’re kind of expanding your style here. What prompted that?

Loudon Wainwright: The producer on the new record, Haven’t Got The Blues is this fellow called David Mansfield, who’s highly regarded and pretty well-known as an all-arounder, a guy who plays a lot of the instruments that have strings on them, I believe; fiddles and guitars and pedal steel guitar and mandolin. He’s also a friend of mine and has been on a lot of my records over the years. The way the record came about is that he has a little studio in Maplewood, New Jersey, and I used to go out there and he had some skills on the board, being an engineer. We just put this together over the period of about a year. I don’t think we were thinking conceptually of what was going to make this one particularly different; Older Than My Old Man Now focused a lot on death and decay of course and the new one is death and decay and depression!

A Conversation with Rocco DeLuca – HuffPost 9.8.14

Mike Ragogna: Rocco, Daniel Lanois produces your project, a new self-titled album, though you’ve worked with him on your material before. How did you guys initially meet? Rocco DeLuca: We met in Toronto once, then he came to my show with an eight ball and two hookers. I knew we would be friends for life. […]

A Conversation with John Velghe – HuffPost 9.8.14

Mike Ragogna: So there’s something called Motor Bike Tour–The New Hearts MC Road Show occurring. In order to ask you a question, I have to understand what the heck is going on here. John, what the heck is going on here? John Velghe: The New Hearts Motorcycle Club (MC) is a charitable organization I started […]