“Made of Rain” was officially 29 years in the making as the follow-up to the Psychedelic Furs’ seventh studio album, 1991’s “World Outside,” when it arrived in 2020. During that time, grunge, rap-rock and a number of other music scenes arose and petered out, five American presidents served and the internet turned the music industry—and the world—inside out.

And while Furs founding members/siblings singer Richard and bassist Tim Butler spent most of the ‘90s on hiatus and making music as Love Spit Love, they resurrected their original group in 2001. When asked why it took so long for the band to record its eighth studio effort, younger sibling Tim offered a rather straightforward answer.

“When we got back together, we were talking about doing a new album, but we were a bit gun-shy about coming up with an album that could stand up alongside ‘Forever Now’ or ‘Talk Talk Talk’,” Butler said, referencing the group’s 1982 and 1981 albums, respectively.

“We had what we considered good songs and had a band that was really playing well together. We figured the time was right—and it was.”

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The two-week recording session ran from after Christmas 2019 into February 2020. And then the pandemic hit, forcing the Furs to shut down like the rest of the world. For the bass-playing British expat, it meant heading home to his family in Kentucky instead of a planned extended touring jaunt.

“When the new album came out, we’d planned to do a big tour with new material and everyone was gearing up for that,” Butler said.

“And then the whole world shut down and it was a big disappointment. [The album] was supposed to be released early (in 2020) because we thought COVID-19 was going to be under control, which of course it wasn’t. It was a day-to-day sort of thing. You weren’t sure what was going to be shut down next. It was pretty nerve-wracking to watch the news and see how many people got [COVID-19] that day. It was probably a bad thing to watch the news every day, glued to the governor’s four o’clock news conference. So the tour came down to [being launched] in 2022.”

SEE ALSO: OC Fair summer concert series for Pacific Amphitheatre and The Hangar

The waiting paid off.

Produced by Richard Fortus, formerly of Love Spit Love and currently part of Guns N’ Roses, “Made of Rain” seamlessly slides in alongside the likes of “Forever Now” (1982) and “Mirror Moves” (1984). Richard Butler’s measured baritone sets the tone in nuggets ranging from the irresistible baroque new wave earworm “Hide the Medicine” and the melancholy swooning of “Stars” to hypnotically surreal opener “The Boy That Invented Rock & Roll” and the sinewy “Come All Ye Faithful,” both paced by longtime saxophonist Mars Williams.

It’s a long way from when the Butler brothers formed a band after seeing the Sex Pistols play London’s famed 100 Club on Oxford Street.

“We were so blown away by that Sex Pistols show that Richard and I were talking one night about if we had a band, what it would be like,” Butler recalled.

“So then he said we should form a band and I told him I couldn’t play anything. He asked what I wanted to play and since I had recently been blown away seeing John Burnel play with The Stranglers, I said bass. So he said I should save up for a bass and we would form a band. And the psychedelic part of it was because at that time, there were bands with names like the Sex Pistols, Venus and the Razor Blades and The Clash. They were all putting down the psychedelic bands and we wanted a name that showed more of our influences. Also, people would see our name on a marquee and wonder what the hell a psychedelic fur was and would want to check it out.”

After the Psychedelic Furs released their self-titled debut in 1980, it wouldn’t be long before their art rock sensibilities found them at the forefront of the emerging new wave movement alongside peers like Echo and The Bunnymen, The Cure and Siouxsie and The Banshees. A healthy presence on MTV and filmmaker John Hughes’ decision to use the band’s 1981 UK hit “Pretty In Pink” for his 1986 film of the same name helped bolster the band’s popularity as they continued achieving mainstream success in their British homeland with hits like “The Ghost In You,” “Heaven” and “Love My Way.”

Fast forward to the present, and with former David Bowie/Bruce Springsteen drummer Zach Alford on board to keep time for the Furs, Butler the bassist is eager to continue bringing his band’s more recent material to the masses.

“We’re all very excited to play for people, so expect a very excited band,” he said with a laugh. “With the final release of an album that sounds current, despite not having done a record since 1991’s ‘World Outside,’ shows we still have something to say musically. It’s really exciting to finally be getting out there playing new songs—not just for us, but for the audience, who have loyally been coming out to see us since we got back together. Now we’ve got a new album to play for them.”

The Psychedelic Furs will hit The Pacific Amphitheatre at the OC Fair alongside The Romantics and Rooney on Sunday, July 20.

When: 6 p.m. Sunday, July 20

Tickets: $39.50–$79.50 at pacamp.com

Where: 100 Fair Dr, Costa Mesa

That’s the mindset on “Good Together,” the quintet’s recently released eighth full-length outing. As founding member Rachael Price explained in a recent interview, the seed was planted when the band decided to engage in a songwriter’s retreat at drummer/backup vocalist Mike Calabrese’s Vermont home in early 2023.

“We came up with this general concept that we started calling joyful rebellion,” she recalled. “It came out of…not feeling like we were in the mood to be writing sad songs, negative songs or angry songs and wanting to lean into more joyful subjects, but also not wanting to write a fluffy record, either.

“We didn’t want to shy away from the things we were feeling. We just wanted to put a lot of positivity into the songs. That’s where things like ‘Help Is On the Way’ was inspired by that concept. ‘Twenty-Five’ was directly inspired by that concept. ‘Good Together’ is obviously about two people who have had bad luck in past relationships and maybe haven’t been great people themselves, but then they find themselves having better habits when they’re together. We sort of kept taking that idea and putting that twist into the songs.”

The group is slated to play the Troubadour in West Hollywood on June 25 and Great Park Live in Irvine on June 27.

Aiding and abetting in the group’s new concept was producer Mike Elizondo (Dr. Dre/Fiona Apple), who also produced Lake Street Dive’s 2021 effort “Obviously.” For Price, if the band was going to change things up by working together for the first time ever in the earliest and most vulnerable stages of songwriting, then Elizondo was the person who would help it all come off successfully.

“We’ve done co-writing in the past, but have never sat down in the same room as each other and looked at each other and basically stared into the empty canvas of what a song could be and come up with ideas with each other on the spot,” Price said.

“Going into this process again, we had a lot more trust that [Elizondo] would be able to hear all the demos of the songs we’d been working on and know which ones were going to make the record. He’s just a really confident voice and he doesn’t ever really put out bad music. When you have somebody like that saying a song is good and he knows he’s going to be able to make it sound good or that he knows how to get a great performance out of all of us, it just puts us at ease.”

What also made this recording experience all the more special for Price was that she got to share it with her newborn daughter.

“It was the first thing I did after I had my baby,” she shared. “She was there with me, and I had been at home with her for many, many months prior to that. For me, the most fun part was integrating her into that part of my life for the very first time, and it was really exciting.”

Those positive vibes, combined with the Elizondo/Lake Street Dive chemistry, is on full display on “Good Together’s” 11 cuts, which also showcase the band’s musical range. “Seats At the Bar” coasts along on a bouncy tropicalia vibe, and “Dance With a Stranger” gets juiced by a new jack vibe and airy ’80s-kissed synths. Meanwhile, “Get Around” has a slinky, nasty funk vibe that makes this jam sound like an outtake from Sly & the Family Stone. Elsewhere, Lake Street Dive delves into the good feelings with cuts like “Twenty-Five,” a piano ballad that serves as a love letter to a past relationship that didn’t work out.

The prospect of bringing these songs to a live music setting has Price and her bandmates happy to be on tour.

“The set is just a lot more fun and it expresses the band’s personality in a visual way unlike anything we’ve been able to do before,” Price said. “We’re just excited to play around with the show and the way it’s all going to come together. We also have a percussionist coming out with us for a lot of the shows. And we have a full horn section, three horn players— the Huntertones—who are on the record and are going to be playing a lot of the shows with us.”

Formed in Boston in 2004, Lake Street Dive first gained attention when a video of a street corner performance of Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back” was posted on YouTube in 2012 and went viral. It was at this point that the band members committed to working full time as Lake Street Dive, and the band’s widely praised third album, 2014’s “Bad Self Portraits,” served as a launchpad for future success.

The group’s profile has grown steadily since then, to the point where the band is prepared to headline New York City’s Madison Square Garden in September. Price and her bandmates have kept their feet on the ground thanks to a small piece of advice from their drummer’s father.

“I think the best piece of advice I’ve ever been given was right before we went on stage for one of the biggest shows we’d played to date,” Price said.

“We were all really nervous, and Mike Calabrese gave us a quote from his dad. ‘Nothing matters and nobody cares.’ I think people understand that sort of sentiment. You just need to be yourself and to do what’s fun for you. It’s just one of those things where you need to stop thinking about yourself and just have a good time. Nothing matters and nobody cares, so just have fun.”

For McCluskey, who is one-half of the band alongside childhood friend Paul Humphreys, the forced downtime triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic was a major ingredient behind OMD hitting the studio for one more full-blown project.

Now the duo is out on tour and headed to the Greek Theatre for a two-night stay on June 20 and 21.

“We weren’t allowed to go out, so I equated it to when I was a teenager and we only had one TV in the house with three channels and my mother was probably watching ‘Kojak,’ so I’d end up going to my room to paint a picture or write a song,” he said with a laugh during an early April interview. “There was nothing else to do and it was a bit like those days. But you know what, the power of boredom can be very creative.”

With five or six songs percolating on his computer, McCluskey spent his time hammering out verses for songs like “Veruschka,” an atmospheric gem initially recorded for the unmade second album for Onetwo, Humphrey’s short-lived duo with Propaganda singer Claudia Brücken.

Elsewhere, the infectious “Kleptocracy” (which started out being called “When I Was Young”), finds OMD getting political amid gurgling synth washes while highlighting corrupt oligarchs swiping resources in Russia, the United States and Saudi Arabia.

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While McCluskey points out that a good chunk of time found “…Paul busy buying a house in France and making babies,” Humphreys did provide the seeds for a number of songs. Those include the futuristic-sounding Eurodisco classic “Anthropocene” (which refers to the current era in Earth’s evolution when mankind is directly affecting it) and “Look at You Now,” a perfect slice of wistful electro-pop.

While the relationship between McCluskey and Humphreys dates back to grade school, OMD split in 1989 when the latter left over creative differences. McCluskey soldiered on as a solo act under the OMD moniker before retiring the name in 1996. OMD was resurrected a decade later following a request from a German television show for the band to reunite.

The two friends picked up at that point and have released four albums since, with the “Bauhaus Staircase” predecessor being 2017’s “The Punishment of Luxury,” which McCluskey was sure would be the final OMD studio album. And while COVID-19 changed that notion, the Liverpool native has no doubts that, barring another global pandemic, there will be no follow-up to the duo’s 2023 studio effort.

“Paul and I have said before the pandemic that ‘The Punishment of Luxury’ was probably the last studio album,” McCluskey explained. “It is increasingly hard to make a full album we think is up to the standard that we’d like it to be. After 46 years in the band, I love touring and if the mood is upon me, I love the idea of sitting down and trying something. But do I want to go and sit in my programming room without a pandemic forcing me there?

“Am I going to be able to mine my head, soul and heart to keep beating myself up to squeeze out the good stuff — especially after the last few albums have been so well-received? The last thing we want to do is have people say, ‘They’re such a cool band, but this new album sucks. I don’t want to see them play it live and I don’t want to listen to it.’”

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While the current tour kicked off last year, the band postponed dates due to McCluskey needing a knee replacement, as well as vocal cord surgery. OMD has subsequently played dates in Europe, the United Kingdom, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. McCluskey said he was eager to tour the States, and based on those earlier dates, he’s happy to see how well audiences are receiving the new songs alongside OMD’s vintage material.

“This tour will feature ‘Bauhaus Staircase,’ but not exclusively,” he said. “We’re blessed to have a lot of songs people love to hear live. We would be stupid not to play our hits and all the things people love to hear. There will be a slice of ‘Bauhaus Staircase,’ but I don’t want people to be worried about it. What we’ve found over the recent years is that the new songs slot in really well to the set. You play a new song and you don’t see half the audience go to the bathroom, so that’s a good thing.”

When one asks McCluskey about OMD’s early roots, it really is a case of a square peg fitting in a round hole. The prog rock and the nascent punk scene was bubbling up at the time, McCluskey was a self-described “…pretentious young teenager, which is the best way to be.” His muses were “…Kraftwerk and Neu! from Germany, David Bowie, Brian Eno-era Roxy Music, The Velvet Underground and everything else was shite…”

After a brief attempt at playing a guitar gifted to him by his sister was abandoned, McCluskey pivoted to bass because the guitar strings hurt his fingers. The cheapest bass he could afford was a left-handed model at a pawn shop, so the right-handed musician learned to play it upside down, a practice which continues to this day.

When Humphreys showed up at his door to recruit McCluskey to play bass in a prog-rock band of classmates, the duo found they had more in common with each other than their classmates, and soon the duo were making strange music on devices Humphreys was building from scratch. An acquired keyboard and the chance to play at the Liverpool new wave space called Eric’s Club in 1978 opened the door for the duo to be “…two guys with a tape recorder playing songs that even our best friends think (are) weird.”

Eric’s Club had a reciprocal relationship with Manchester club Hacienda, where McCluskey and Humphreys, performing as OMD, crossed paths with Tony Wilson, who signed them to his label, Factory Records, and declared OMD was “…the future of pop music.” It was a bold statement that Humphreys and McCluskey didn’t necessarily embrace.

“The bottom line is we couldn’t believe he was talking about pop music because we thought we weren’t (making that),” McCluskey said.

“You look back now and listen to ‘Electricity’ and ‘Messages’ off the first album and of course it was electronic pop music. But there really wasn’t such a thing at the time. It was only a year later that Gary Numan came along and people like us and The Human League were like, ‘Where did he come from? We’ve been going before he started. How is he allowed to have a number one?’ Our crazy idea — 18 months later — was the new big pop sensation. Who knew? We didn’t.”

Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD)

When: Friday, June 20, and Saturday, June 21 at 8:00 p.m.

Where: The Greek Theatre, 2700 N Vermont Ave., Los Angeles

Tickets: Starting at $41.30 via ticketmaster.com

Since the childhood friends founded the band in 2001, the Ohio natives have dabbled in psychedelic rock (2014’s “Turn Blue”), recorded a platter full of hill country blues songs (2021’s “Delta Kream”) and collaborated on a hip-hip project with Roc-a-Fella Records co-founder Damon Dash featuring performances by Mos Def, Q-Tip and Ludacris (2009’s “BlakRoc”).

The band’s next album, the forthcoming “No Rain, No Flowers,” which is set to drop on Aug. 8, finds The Black Keys drawing inspiration from their record hangs — dance parties where Auerbach and Carney take turns spinning rare vinyl 45s that are the fuel for the groove-driven, danceable vibes that infuse this latest collection of songs.

Fans of the duo can get a taste when the group hits the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles on Tuesday, June 3.

“The thing is that Dan and my tastes are such that we both have a similar work ethic and tastes,” Carney said in a mid-May interview. “With this album, it’s an intentional four-on-the-floor [approach]. We’ve never done much intentional four-on-the-floor type stuff or an up-tempo dance kind of thing. How do we contextualize this? The reference point is listening to the Giorgio Moroder-produced Sparks album [1979’s “No. 1 in Heaven”] and watching the band evolve through the years.”

As has been the case in recent years (the Black Keys’ collaborations have included Noel Gallagher of Oasis, Beck and Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top), collaboration was a key component throughout “No Rain, No Flowers.” In this case, those partnerships came via songwriters Rick Nowels (Stevie Nicks/Adele) and Scott Storch (The Roots/Snoop Dogg/The Game). It was an effort to keep the creative process interesting.

“We wrote about half this album with Rick Nowels, who is a guy we became acquainted with through Dan’s work with Lana Del Rey (on her 2014 album “Ultraviolence”),” Carney explained, “Rick had written a bunch of songs with Lana. We’d never actually gotten in the studio before with a ‘songwriter.’ We’ve worked with other musicians and we were curious to see what Rick was all about.”

He added, “Scott was someone we admired through watching a lot of his posts on Instagram and YouTube. I had a hunch that he’s got to be some kind of killer musician, and when we finally got him in the studio, we found out he might be the best musician we’ve ever played with. He’s operating on a whole different level musically. Being in the studio with Scott and Rick was the first time we were writing with keyboard players. One of the fun things was trying to figure out how to bridge the gap between guitar and keyboard. I think that’s something that’s all over the album and kind of ties it together.”

With 13 studio albums under their collective belts, The Black Keys are gearing up for a U.S. tour, only the band’s third such outing since 2014. Given the depth of the band’s catalog, crafting the show is a challenging, yet welcome prospect; Carney is relishing it.

“We’re making a conscious effort to pull some deeper stuff out of the catalog that we haven’t played in a while,” he said. “I’m very conscious of what I’d want to see from a band at a concert. There are a lot of songs that we definitely have to play pretty much every night, so we will be playing those. Plus, having 11 gold singles — that’s over half a set right there if you’re going to play everything.

“This is going to be fun and we’re excited to tour the U.S. It’s the European tours that become a bit of a drag and I don’t know why,” Carney said. “Dan and I were talking about it today. I’m excited to play a show anywhere in the U.S. because it feels so familiar. I feel like I can just rent a car and [screw around]. It’s a little different when you wake up in Dresden and try to figure out what to do for the day. But I think also having two little kids, it’s much harder to pull away from that distance when you’re in Europe.”

In addition to all the recording and touring the Black Keys have done in the nearly quarter century Auerbach and Carney have been musical partners, both music obsessives run their own recording studios, Easy Eye Sound and Audio Eagle Studio respectively. And while both musical workaholics lean into the grind, Carney is amused by how much of what and he and his creative partner do flies under the radar for most people.

“It’s funny talking about how this is our 13th album, but aside from that, Dan has probably produced 50 to 60 albums in the past 15 years and I’ve probably done another 15 myself,” he pointed out. “Then you mention my projects, Dan’s solo stuff and The Arcs, I think we’re always trying to make something a little bit different, and I think it makes our career way harder to not be making the same thing over and over.”

“Music is our biggest passion and what we’re most interested in,” Carney added, “and so our tastes are always changing. To keep ourselves interested, you kind of have to move the needle or change the perspective. I look at a band like AC/DC, Green Day or a group that makes similar records, it just makes things way easier doing that. You have a known fanbase that you’re working toward. I’m sure half the people that will read this will wonder why the [hell] the Black Keys are working with Scott Storch?”

The Black Keys

When: Tuesday, June 3 at 8:00 p.m.

Where: The Greek Theatre, 2700 N Vermont Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90027

Tickets: Start at $89 at ticketmaster.com.

What else do you call a pop artist who goes from hitting the Broadway stage to recording a reggae album before setting his sights on cutting a bluegrass project? The multifaceted star played a major role during a 10-week run in “Waitress” in 2017, then dropped his reggae album “Look For the Good” in 2020, before working on a currently untitled collection of bluegrass songs that remains ready for release.

As an artist who’s let his instincts guide him ever since releasing his 2002 debut “Waiting For My Rocket to Come,” he followed much the same modus operandi in making his recently released and self-described roller disco outing “Mystical Magical Rhythmical Radical Ride (MMRRR).” The process for this new project was driven by the success of “Look For the Good” and translated into a seamless 10-day recording stretch in New York City in 2023 during which Mraz reunited with a number of former collaborators, including Los Angeles outfit Raining Jane and producer Martin Terefe, who first worked with Mraz as a songwriter in the early 2000s.

Now he’s bringing his varied act to the stage on May 16 at Agua Caliente Resort Casino Spa Rancho Mirage.

“[MMRRR] was a little bit inspired by the experience I had from reggae,” Mraz explained in an interview. “The reggae album informed me of dance because in reggae, everyone is playing percussion. Piano is playing percussion, guitar is playing percussion — there is just so much rhythm going on — I didn’t expect that. These mellow tunes that I wrote surprised me. When I sat back and listened to that reggae record, I realized that every song was a dance track. That really got me excited because I always wanted to make a dance album, but I always thought it was going to have to be with a DJ or be an EDM project.

“The reggae album really informed me that I can do this with the band and that what we needed to do was find the right pocket and the right rhythm that we’re all playing to make it work,” he said. “Also, during the pandemic, I started roller skating, which is something I loved to do as a kid. Falling in love with skating again got me back into the rinks where basically new music is being played, the new disco of today — the Dua Lipas, the Doja Cats, the Megan Thee Stallions. The new hip-hop and the new disco is all still happening at the roller rink. I was heavily influenced by that, to see if I could make music that could stand up to stuff like that.”

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Coming right off the road from the Look For the Good tour, Mraz reconnected with Terefe, who informed the Virginia native that he’d just opened Kensaltown East in New York City. Mraz immediately inquired about renting this studio and invited his former producer to hang around and be an extra set of ears. This hand-in-glove arrangement reflected the ease in which all these songs came to fruition.

“We even recorded [the album] without a full agreement that Martin was the producer, which made it feel easy,” Mraz said. “There was no pressure and no stress. There was just the joy of old friends getting back together to make more music. I feel like dancing came together on tour because the audience was dancing and we needed more music in our set for dancing. Every time I sat down to write a song, the universe was just gifting me everything I needed for it. So it was really easy.”

With the basic rhythm and vocal tracks laid down during his Big Apple layover, Mraz briefly stopped off in Nashville to work with some other long-time collaborators (Carlos Sosa, the Grooveline Horns and string arranger David Davidson) before returning to his own Oceanside home studio to lay down guitar tracks.

The result ranges from the lush orchestrated R&B of “Pancakes and Butter” that casts off a Hi Records-meets-Philadelphia International Records vibe to the chugging Bruno Mars-flavored “I Feel Like Dancing” to the ethereal grooves of “Disco Sun” and the funky “You Might Like It,” which is carried by more a mix of darting strings and a dollop of sitar. With all this rhythmic inspiration being driven by the last album and subsequent tour, concert-goers can expect more of the same when Mraz and his crew come to their local venue.

“We do our best every night to bring [MMRRR] to life,” he said. “It’s a wild, fun circus that kind of goes through my entire catalog, but spends a lot of time on the new record and how they all weave together. They’re all songs that cheer us on, stoke the fires of love, or present gratitude because that’s the point. People come to a concert to have fun and let loose. We have a very vocal audience, so that’s quite fun.”

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While dance is the rocket fuel for Mraz’s latest creative pivot, it also reflects a deeper meaning for him as he muses about moving into middle age. When asked about the meaning of this form of expression, the singer-songwriter, 47, shared that the importance of dance goes far beyond being able to bust a move.

“Dance is about humility, and that’s where it starts for me because I don’t really know what I’m doing and I feel like I do it differently every time,” he said. “It’s a way to shake off some kind of narcissism or ego and reduce myself to my simplest form. I’m just human and trying to figure out how to move this body and how to make it work. Through that, I’m giving my other band members permission to be goofy and then I’m giving the audience permission to be goofy. But then it starts to get empowering. I strip myself down to my dorkiest, but then I start to feel like there is some technicality to this. And every time I start to learn some technicality, I feel a little cooler. I get to rebuild myself. So it’s freeing in a way. I plan to do a lot more of it. This is just the beginning of me.”

Walking that fine line of balancing light and heavy in volume and presentation is something that’s been his jam dating back to his Hüsker Dü days. It continued through his time in the band Sugar. It’s also infused in the fine body of work he’s churned out in a solo career that kicked off with 1989’s seminal “Workbook.” There’s plenty more where that came from on Mould’s new album “Here We Go Crazy.”

“I think this new album is a continuation of the same style of work that I have done for many years—sort of the bright melodies and darker words,” he said. “This record is a little bit informed by stuff that started in 2020 for all of us. Isolation and a sort of uncertainty.”

As has been the case when he’s decided to go down a band path, Mould’s musical language of choice is power trio. He’s once again playing with bassist Jason Narducy and drummer Jon Wurster, a threesome that first joined forces on 2011’s “Silver Age.”

The current album’s origins date back to the pandemic, when Mould was grappling with songwriting at a time when the pause button on touring didn’t allow him to get the kind of feedback from an audience he was accustomed to getting in the past. That all changed once societal restraints loosened and allowed him to go on the road again.

Now, the famed rocker is bringing his new songs to L.A.’s Teragram Ballroom on Friday, April 4.

“Once I was able to go out and do some solo touring, I started trying out some of the things I’d written and people responded well,” Mould said. “I think that helped me get back on the songwriting horse. When longtime songwriters start to get older, I think that there are all these expectations that you’re going to outdo your other work or reinvent the wheel. Or write ‘The Tenpenny Opera’ or whatever. I wasn’t really having any of that in my head.”

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For Mould, those themes of isolation populate the front of the record and take the form of the frenetic “Neanderthal,” a nod to growing up in a violent household where he recalled “Heavy hands at the ready.” That betrayal continues in “Sharp Little Pieces” amid waves of hard-hitting chords that gild lines like “Young child full of inspiration, story never told/Deep bruise, one manipulation and they send you home.” Toward the end, a song like “You Need to Shine” was Mould’s attempt at “trying to bring some sunlight to everything and trying to find a little bit of hope during interesting times in an interesting world.”

It all adds up to a batch of songs that Mould is only eager to explore in a live setting. He’s also eyeing taking a deeper dive into the work he’s done with Narducy and Wurster.

“I think the starting point for this tour is trying to showcase a lot of the new record,” Mould explained. “More generally, this feels like a really good time to look at our story as a three-piece and to look at the six records we’ve made together and really celebrate that which we created together as opposed to leaning really heavily into other projects I’ve done. That’s sort of a general vibe that we’re looking at. There are a lot of good songs on these records that we really haven’t dug into live. That’s how we’re going into it.” He added with a laugh, “Ask me more after about a week of the tour.”

Creative introspection has been a constant for Mould, dating back to his earliest musical memory when he came across his first piece of vinyl as a toddler.

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“I was living in an apartment with my family when I picked this square, 12-inch piece of cardboard,” he recalled. “It was the album soundtrack for “Around the World in 80 Days.” There was this big round piece of plastic in it and when you put it on a machine, it made sound. I was fascinated by that whole idea, so I guess that would be my first cognizant memory of music.”

With his musical fuse lit, Mould went from teaching himself how to play piano by copying what he heard on AM radio to taking his first crack at writing songs when he was nine. By the time he was 14 or 15, the aspiring musician’s “varying levels of obsession” shifted over to playing guitar after performing in grade-school talent shows and singing in choir. Along the way, both The Beatles and Ramones served as inspiration.

“I remember getting The Beatles’ ‘Revolver’ when I was six,” Mould said. “The artwork was unlike anything you would normally see on a ‘60s album cover. The music was fascinating, as were the stories and the melodies—just the whole thing. At six years old, these are things that feel like they appear from outer space because they’re just so foreign. Hearing music like that and then understanding who The Beatles are. It then opened up this world of trying to understand pop music as a kid, having jukebox singles. Just the immersion of it was fascinating.”

He added, “Later on, when I heard The Ramones’ first album, I thought if you applied yourself, there was room for anybody to do anything. That gave me the freedom to really begin to express myself.”

With a hefty amount of touring on the horizon for most of 2025, Mould is content to “work, work, work—get out and play, while the body allows.” Following a triumphant performance on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” and the positive reviews he’s been getting for “Here We Go Crazy,” (Rolling Stone said the album “mixes raw power and deep honesty”) Mould has been able to feel some vindication following the uncertainty he had going into recording his latest effort.

“I was sort of trying to write in my comfort zone, which again, music critics and such may look at and go, ‘Ugh,’” he said with a chuckle. “It’s funny now that the record is out, I’m seeing the reaction to it. People are finding a lot of comfort in it. I’m happy about that because I wasn’t so certain what I had done when I finished the record. But now it feels like I maybe did the right thing.”

Bob Mould with Craig Finn

Where: Teragram Ballroom, 1234 W 7th St, Los Angeles.

When: 7 p.m. Friday, April 4.

Tickets: Standard Admission for $46.70 via Ticketmaster.com

The hit—unleashed on the world to chart-topping success by the late actor Richard Harris—has been resurrected via its use (both the Harris and the Donna Summer disco version) in Tim Burton’s latest cinematic effort, “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.” With reportedly 218 versions of this earworm floating around, it’s the gift that keeps on giving, which is music to composer Webb’s ears and sure to be included as part of the setlist for his upcoming tour.

The multi-Grammy Award-winner is returning to Hollywood’s Catalina Jazz Club on Friday, Jan. 31 and Saturday, Feb. 1.

“It’s unstoppable,” Webb said with a laugh in a recent interview. “I actually sent Tim Burton, who I don’t know, a little email thanking him for reviving my monster. And he wrote back, ‘Thank you for the opportunity to work with your monster.’ It was just a one-line correspondence, but it was like, I know you’re there and I appreciate you for what you did. That’s really all that needs to be said.

“When he was doing this movie, I think the image of the monster is appropriate when you apply it to ‘MacArthur Park’ because it is so big and overpowering. I think that sort of fit the movie because there’s a craziness to it. In some strange way, he locked onto that and I think that this song and movie are coming from the same shelf.”

Fresh off writing the 1968 Grammy Award-winning hit “Up-Up and Away” for The Fifth Dimension, Webb took up the challenge by Fifth Dimension producer/engineer Bones Howe to indulge his “repressed classicist tendencies” and write “something with a classical flair that actually had movements and different tempos, a full orchestra and repeating themes.”

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Webb took Howe up on the challenge and after composing it, hopped into his Camaro and headed over to the studio to offer the freshly composed “MacArthur Park” to pop outfit The Association (“Along Comes Mary,” “Cherish”), whose next album Howe was producing. It was subsequently rejected, a fact the producer took harder than its composer.

“I didn’t know the outcome until later that night,” Webb explained. “Bones told me they turned it down . . . after I left he told them that after ‘MacArthur Park’ goes Top 10 on the Billboard charts, that he was no longer their producer. I said that sounded a bit dramatic and he said I created something fantastic and they turned their noses up at it. I didn’t take it personally.”

With that rejection fresh in his mind, Webb consigned the song to the bottom of his pile of song ideas.

“That’s the way songwriters are about songs once they’ve been turned down,” he said. “They’ve got the curse of job on them.”

When he jetted over to London to work with Harris, who was coming off the film musical “Camelot” and was looking to record an album—amidst quite a bit of drinking and carousing—Webb ran out of songs when the Irish actor asked if he had any other ideas left.

“I hauled it out, put it on top of the piano and started playing the intro—it was very classical sounding, dare I say Wagnerian almost,” Webb recalled. “We reached the first verse and right then and there, [Harris] smacked his hand down on the grand piano so hard that it if would have been me, I would have broken my hand. He hit that piano so hard that it sounded like a shot went off and he said, ‘I’ll have that, Jimmy Webb. And I, Richard Harris, will make a hit out of that song, and I’ll be a pop star.’”

“MacArthur Park” topped the charts in Europe and Australia, peaked at number two behind Herb Alpert’s “This Guy’s in Love With You” in 1968 and won the 1969 Grammy For Best Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s).

This tale and more are what attendees can expect to hear when they come out to see Webb along with singer-songwriter Pete Mancini, who’ll be joining him on a few numbers.

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“We’re gonna have a few laughs, that’s for sure,” Webb said with a chuckle. “We don’t do shows without laughs. We’re going to hear what are not, and I don’t think it’s presumptuous for me to say, modern-day standards and some material that was recorded by the real giants of the Great American Songbook.”

Having just celebrated his 78th birthday last year, Webb is in quite a reflective mood.

“I did a cruise with The Beach Boys and got back together with my old friend Bill Medley,” he said. “I just got glued to him for four days and thought, ‘I love this guy so much and why haven’t I seen this guy for the last 20 years?’ I don’t know. To elaborate, I think I want to be closer to my friends. I feel that we’ve lost—J.D. Souther was a close friend of mine, Leah Kunkel—I can’t even talk about. I think [my wife Laura Savini and I have] set our goals with maintaining contact and being more assiduous in pursuing the friends that are still with us. And just going for the part of life that really matters the most.”

Part of what may come out in the coming year for Webb is new music and a sequel to “The Cake and the Rain: A Memoir,” the Oklahoma native’s 2017 autobiography that only went up to his 23rd year. To do both, Webb admits he’s going to have to buckle down and carve out some time.

“I think I have at least one more album in me and I have the songs,” he said “Some of them partially complete and some of them finished. Some of them I haven’t even thought of yet. That’s another thing where you stop writing now because you’re going to be recording. Recording is recording. That’s another discipline. I have to make a decision, and I think Laura is preparing an environment for us in our new home. There will be room for me to actually take six months and have a room that is devoted to writing that book. No touring and no interruptions. You have to put on the cassock to write. That’s another frame of reference that you have to embrace completely and wholeheartedly.”

Jimmy Webb returns to Catalina Jazz Club

When: Friday Jan. 31 and Saturday, Feb. 1 at 8:30 pm. Dinner begins at 7:00 pm.

Where: 6725 W Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90028

Information: https://www.jimmywebb.com/shows

In the process, Fogerty signed away the distribution and publishing rights to a treasure trove of hit material predominantly penned by him. Five decades-plus of litigation followed as the Berkeley native fought to get back his songs with lawsuits and counter-suits flying back and forth. At one point, Zaentz sued for defamation of character over the Fogerty songs “Mr. Greed” and “Zanz Can’t Dance” and the songwriter was forced to change to title and lyric to the latter to “Vanz Can’t Dance.” Zaents also sued for plagiarism, contending that the Fogerty tune “The Old Man Down the Road” was lifted from the Fantasy-copyrighted-but-Fogerty-penned “Run Through the Jungle.” Zaentz lost that suit.

The vitriol got to the point where for roughly 15 years after Creedence Clearwater Revival dissolved in 1972, Fogerty refused to play any CCR songs in concert not wanting Zaentz to make any money off of his performances. (That resolve softened when Fogerty played a Vietnam Veterans concert on July 4, 1987).

The tide changed when Concord Records purchased the Fantasy catalog in 2004. One of the first orders of business was to immediately reinstate and increase Fogerty’s artist royalties, which he had relinquished to Zaentz in 1980 to get out of his Fantasy deal and had not received in a quarter century. This year kicked off with the 78-year-old Rock & Roll Hall of Famer announcing on Twitter that he would gain control of upwards of 65 CCR copyrights, including songs like “Fortunate Son,” “Bad Moon Rising,” “Proud Mary” and “Have You Ever Seen the Rain,” for the first time ever with Concord (now the owner of Fantasy Records) retaining the CCR master recordings already in its catalog. It’s the end of a protracted legal battle that stretched over a half century and Fogerty is grateful that it’s resolved.

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“It’s the most rewarding and fulfilling thing career-wise,” he said in a recent interview. “I was denied ownership for so long of these songs that I wrote and created. Unfortunately, being signed to a label—the ownership was handed over the second the contract was signed in early 1968. It meant songs I wrote were never owned by me. They already went into a section the minute I finished writing them. I’ve tried for years and years to figure out all the legal ways and friendly man-to-man ways that you try things and I was always denied. It became such a large source of disappointment to me. You generate a lot of emotions, especially over time. It’s a big relief now. I just don’t have to worry about that now. It was wrong, of course. I’m in a celebratory mood for sure. I’m just happy that I’m still here and I get to share this with my fans and also with my family, which is such a large part of my musical journey at this point.”

For Fogerty, 2024 represents a victory lap that includes a tour that is a family affair. Wife/manager Julie, (who was instrumental in helping her husband reacquire his songs) is by his side, while sons Shane and Tyler, who have a psychedelic rock band called Hearty Har are also sidemen for their pop. Even daughter Kelsy appears onstage performing with her siblings during the tour’s “Proud Mary” encore. Not surprisingly, this current tour is making up for the lost time of Fogerty not delving into the rich CCR catalog for so long.

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“Because of the celebration of me getting ownership of my songs, it’s such a brand-new feeling for me,” he explained. “It’s been more than 50 years. That’s really the theme [for this tour]. I’ll be doing much of the Creedence catalog and including some deeper album cuts as some people put it, particularly if you were really into all those records—because I wrote those songs. These are songs I know very well, but maybe the rest of the world—like the person who only heard hits on the radio – (might not) know about some of the other songs. We’ll be pulling those out of retirement, putting them on stage and breathing new life into them. In that sense, it will give you a different perspective on those album cuts. And mainly, the vibe of it all is the great joy that I feel with finally being connected. In a sense, the people that are fans, especially the ones that have supported me over all this time, will understand this. They probably intuitively know how I feel.”

Having signed a deal with BMG in 2019, Fogerty has been slowly crafting new material as well, only stopping long enough to release “Fogerty’s Factory,” a collection of CCR and solo hits along with covers of Steve Goodman’s “City of New Orleans” and Bill Withers’ “Lean On Me” that coincided with the 50th anniversary of the 1970 Creedence album “Cosmo’s Factory.” The album even found Fogerty and his offspring recreating the original album cover with help from brother Bob, who shot the initial image. The CCR founding member also penned two other new songs, “Weeping in The Promised Land” and “Joy of My Life,” a cut inspired by wife Julie, who he recently celebrated his 32nd wedding anniversary with.

“It’s a testimony that you’re with the right person that you’re been searching for and really never thought you would find,” he said. “All the rest of the story in that song is actually true. I’ve laid down next to her after coming home from a songwriting trip and having been away for a week or so—and she was falling asleep and suddenly my mind started going and writing the song that eventually became ‘Joy of My Life.’ It’s just really special.”

For now, Fogerty and his family will clock in plenty of time on the road with hopes to possibly pop into the studio at some time before year’s end.

“I’m working on material and it would fulfill me the most to be able to write a song with my kids and then get it recorded in some form or another,” he said. “Whether it be for the boys’ band Hearty Har or as a song that is kind of officially in my career you might say. And I’m not really sure what that might be because we haven’t done that yet. But they have a lot of talent and I think I have a lot of experience to pass on to them. The greatest part about being a musician is getting to play in front of an audience, more so than any of the other parts. It’s just a wonderful experience to share with other humans and present your songs and play. I’m looking very much forward to this.”

John Fogerty

Where: Pacific Amphitheater, 100 Fair Dr, Costa Mesa.

When: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 3.

Tickets: $55 – $121

Guitarist-vocalist Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney have perfected a less-is-more approach to scratching their musical itch since the duo got together at Akron, Ohio’s Firestone High School in 1996.

Most recently, that unspoken compositional ESP carried the twosome through the pandemic and yielded two albums in as many years —2021’s Grammy-nominated collection of hill country blues songs, “Delta Kream,” and last year’s “Dropout Boogie.”

That innate Buckeye symbiosis led to the former being cut in a day and a half, with the latter being a far less strenuous affair by taking around 10 days. For Auerbach, it was a matter of forward motion providing the fuel for this kind of efficiency.

“We had just come out of that ‘Delta Kream’ record and with us loving how well it turned out, we just kind of took that momentum and went right into this new record,” he explained in a phone interview. The band is scheduled to play next on Saturday, Jan. 13 at the iHeartradio and ALT/FM 98.7 Alter Ego fest at Honda Center in Anaheim alongside Paramore, The 1975, Yellowcard, Thirty Seconds to Mars, Bush, Sum 41, Lovelytheband and The Last Dinner Party.

“It was great — we didn’t really think about it too much,” Auerbach continued. “There are three or four songs on the record that are first takes and we only played once and haven’t played since, but we’ll definitely play again. It’s that kind of thing. And then there are other songs like ‘Wild Child’ that we spent a little bit more time on. But I think it was a healthy mix of both — studio creations and total improvisations. I think that blend gives it a good raw sound. If you’re fortunate enough to be in a situation like I am with Pat where we don’t even have to talk, you can just go in and let whatever natural chemistry evolve. I think it’s a real blessing and you can hear it on the records.”

The 10 songs that make up “Dropout Boogie” display a free-wheeling looseness that starts with the irresistible rocking opener “Wild Child” and continues right through closing cut “Didn’t I Love You,” a hypnotic fuzz guitar-soaked blues jam that falls somewhere between Canned Heat and Creedence Clearwater Revival. Elsewhere, the duo dabble in psychedelic soul on “It Ain’t Over” and its stacked wailing harmonies, while Carney’s loose-limbed timekeeping provides a perfect counterpoint to Auerbach’s plaintive vocals on the emotive “How Long?”

And while the Black Keys have historically kept the creative process to within their small circle, save for a few times of working with respected producer Dangermouse, “Dropout Boogie” found the duo inviting in guests Greg Cartwright (Reigning Sound), Angelo Petraglia (Kings of Leon) and Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top.

“We try to keep it simple and not think about (the creative process),” he explained. “But we did try a couple of things on this record differently — like have outside writers like Greg Cartwright and our buddy Angelo come in and do some writing, which is something we’d never done that before. The closest we came to that was working with Dangermouse. It was like that from the beginning probably due in part to insecurity and not being confident enough in ourselves to let other people into our world, which I think probably helped and hurt us equally. We put out five records before anything got played on the radio. The only time anything got played on the radio is when we decided to go into an actual recording studio for the first time and work with somebody else and see what it’s like. We had such a good experience working with Brian (Burton, Dangermouse’s real name) and learned so much.”

Longtime supporter and friend, Gibbons, who first saw the band out on its very first tours while they were still riding around in a mini van, Auerbach reports, was another welcome guest at Auerbach’s Nashville-based Easy Eye Sound studio.

“I heard that he was in town, so I texted him and told him if he was free, to stop by because Pat and I were going to be hanging out and recording. A few hours later I got a text that said, ‘I’m headed over hombre,’” Auerbach said with a laugh. “He showed up with a bottle of red wine and no guitar. We poured him a glass, handed him a guitar and he plugged it straight into an amp. We just started improvising for an hour and a half. One of those improvisations was ‘Good Love.’ We didn’t talk about what the hell we were doing because we were just having fun. It was awesome. We sent him the record and texted him and he loved it, man. It was cool. He’s just a big hero of ours.”

The Black Keys have now released 11 albums since dropping its 2002 debut “The Big Come Up,” with the Dangermouse-produced 2008 album “Attack & Release” providing a commercial breakthrough that paved the way to the platinum-selling success of the next two albums, “Brothers” and “El Camino.”

Given Auerbach’s output in The Black Keys, as a solo artist (two albums) and side projects (The Arcs and Blakroc), it’s no surprise that music was a big constant for Auerbach. His childhood is full of memories ranging from his mother playing Scott Joplin rags and “The Entertainer” on piano, to his dad playing records from everyone from The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and the Grateful Dead to Robert Johnson and Son House.

But it was Auerbach’s mom’s musical side of the family that inspired him to pick up a guitar.

“Whenever we had family reunions, I would see acoustic guitars, mandolins, harmonicas and upright basses and everybody would be singing harmonies, so there was a lot of music growing up,” he said. “My uncles all had Martin guitars, played bluegrass and sang. I idolized them and wanted to be able to join in and play music with those guys.”

That restless creativity continues for Auerbach, as The Black Keys play a few shows to end the year. Fans can expect the Keys to “…play some of the hits, of course. We’re also going to play a little bit from all of the catalog start to finish.” In the meantime, the band is keeping it simple while continuing to let the creative juices flow.

“We never try to reinvent the wheel,” Auerbach said. “I think a lot of modern-day bands, especially bands that have gone to college, they tend to try and reinvent themselves every single record. We’re just fortunate that we’ve had our own thing since we were 16 or 17 and we just lean into that.

“We’ve been working nonstop on new music and probably have more than half of it done with some special guests coming in and writing with us,” he added. “Not being on the road has really been helpful for Pat and I and our relationship. I just think we feel more creative than ever, I must say.”

ALTer Ego

When: 7 p.m. Jan. 13

Where: Honda Center. 2695 E. Katella Ave., Anaheim

Tickets: $180-$650 at Ticketmaster.com.

It’s something the veteran act has been doing on a consistent basis ever since forming in Rockford, Ill. in 1973. The nearly two years in which touring came to a standstill due to the COVID-19 pandemic didn’t mean founding member Rick Nielsen sat back twiddling his thumbs. An ever-restless sort, Nielsen found plenty to do in trying to avoid being idle.

“I’ve never been home that much ever,” he said with a laugh during a recent phone interview. The band is currently out on the road and though it had to originally postpone its stop at Fantasy Springs Resort Casino in Indio on Nov. 19, it was able to reschedule for Saturday, Dec. 10.

“It wasn’t inspiring, but it was interesting,” he continued. “Everybody was in the same boat — me the same as you and the next guy. I have other things I do — organizing things, working on my guitar collection — stuff I can’t do from the road so well. I try to create jobs for other people and that’s what I did. There’s a spirits business that I’ve been involved in. I worked on two pilots for TV; just lots of stuff. I can’t hold it in my hand here and show you.”

One of the things the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer can show fans is “In Another World,” Cheap Trick’s 20th studio album. While its official release date was April 2021, a couple of singles were leaked out dating back to 2018, including the opening cut “The Summer Looks Good On You,” a gem chock-full of layered harmonies and irresistible guitar riffs that conjure up images of the beach, warm weather and carefree vibes.

Other highlights include “Here’s Looking At You,” a co-write with hit songwriter Linda Perry that finds both artists digging into a deep power pop vein erupting with an urgent torrent of melodic hooks. Elsewhere, veteran harmonica player Jimmy Hall is tapped to play blistering harp on the sinewy blues of “Final Day.”

“We’ve known Jimmy Hall through the years with Wet Willie and we had a part where Robin (Zander) plays harmonica, and while he’s really good, Jimmy Hall is way better,” Nielsen said. “We’ve worked with well-known players before and it didn’t turn out the way we wanted. With Jimmy, he just fit right in. As for Linda, we’ve known her for a while. She played us part of this tune and we fleshed it out. We’ve done three or four things with Linda and she’s just a terrific writer.”

Wrapping up this baker’s dozen-worth of songs is a reading of John Lennon’s “Gimme Some Truth” featuring friend and ex-Sex Pistol Steve Jones on guitar. While fans might scratch their heads over the decision for the apolitical Cheap Trick to cut one of Lennon’s more overtly political songs, it made perfect sense to Nielsen and his band mates.

“We’re not a political band, but we talk about politics amongst ourselves,” he explained. “These are songs that we’d written over a period of time, including during the last four years of the last administration — it’s about how to be optimistic in a pessimistic world. We decided to do (‘Gimme Some Truth’) so John Lennon could get all the credit and all the criticism. It seemed an apropos song.”

Dependably consistent might be the best way to describe Cheap Trick. For Nielsen, his musical path started out being the son of opera singers who moved the family from the Chicago suburb of Elmhurst, Ill. to Rockford, where they opened a music store. By the time he was 13, the younger Nielsen was a drummer in The Phaetons, his first school band. Tired of having to get up from behind his kit to teach his group’s guitarists the proper chords for the Stones and Beatles covers his group was performing, he eventually switched to guitar.

“I didn’t know how to play, but I knew a right note from a wrong note,” he quipped.

And while Nielsen’s love of the instrument has led to his amassing an impressive guitar collection that includes a five-neck axe, he’s modest about his guitar playing ability.

“I was self-taught and I still think of myself more as a songwriter than a guitar player,” he said. “There are all these guitar whizzes around — I’m not one of them.”

Those compositional chops have roots in both the British Invasion sensibilities of groups like the Fab Four, Stones, Yardbirds, Who and The Move and the rich trove of blues legends plying their trade in Nielsen’s childhood Chicago backyard. And while The Phaetons morphed into The Grim Reapers (where Nielsen first met future bass-playing bandmate Tom Petersson), the guitarist’s trip to Cheap Trick included a brief stint replacing Todd Rundgren in Nazz and in the short-lived band Sick Man of Europe. His current group eventually got off the ground fronted by former singer Randy “Xeno” Hogan, who left the band shortly after its formation. It was then that Nielsen extended an invitation to Zander to join Cheap Trick.

“Robin is the singer I’ve always looked for to sing my songs,” Nielsen recalled. “All the other singers we had were capable, but they weren’t the interpreters that Robin was. He’s a real vocalist, he’s not a shouter or a copycat singer. I didn’t know him, but he was the one.”

In the nearly five decades since its start, Cheap Trick has relied on a disciplined work ethic that Nielsen acknowledges has earned them a reputation for being a rock-solid live act to this day.

“Wham, bam, thank you ma’am,” he said. “We get up there and play. We’re fortunate that we have so much different material to pick from.”

And while the fickle tastes of the music industry and fair-weather fans have ebbed and flowed, Nielsen and company have established both a solid canon of music and become a much-loved cult act whose hard work landed them in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2016. For Nielsen, his band’s longevity can be attributed to staying true to their roots of being a rock and roll band with an ear for pop.

“I say this as kind of a joke — we’ve never progressed,” he said. “We didn’t try to be something we weren’t. We started off pretty good, but to never progress means we didn’t want to be a jazz group or a metal act. We’re just trying to be what we did. To this day, we’ve never had fire pots or explosions. We’re Cheap Trick. The playing and our music set us apart. We didn’t have any dance steps worked out. We’ve never worried about changing for the sake of change.”

Cheap Trick

When: 8 p.m. Dec. 10

Where: Fantasy Springs  Resort Casino, 84-245 Indio Springs Parkway, Indio

Tickets: $49-$69 at fantasyspringsresort.com.