Artist Interviews on 93XRT: Recent Episodes
Audacy
Marty Lernartz welcomed Capitol Recording Artist and social media sensation Petey to XRT for a conversation about growing up on Chicago's North Shore, his new album 'USA', his hilariously surreal comedy and their mutual experience of working in a mailroom.
Audacy host Annalisa at Chicago's 93XRT got a chance to speak with music and fashion icon Boy George this week about his upcoming Culture Club tour dates, as well as his biggest inspirations, the impact his late mother had on his life, and more.
Boy George and Culture Club are heading back out on the road this summer with fellow new wave favorites Howard Jones and Berlin, as well as a number of U.K. concerts with Rod Stewart, before heading back overseas for even more dates in Australia. Quite a busy time for the band, but an exciting one for sure.
"It's a lot more fun now," Boy George says. "There's just a different vibration that was always there but I think is just more now, about connecting with the audience and having that relationship with people that you've known for a long time. These people have followed you for years, some of them and it's really nice to go back... I would say, 'Everything is better when you arrive smiling.'"
Growing up a music lover in the '80s, Annalisa looks back on how she would use her clothing and records the same way kids do today as a sort of armor, while remembering Boy George as one of the most up-front proponents of self-love, individualism, and pro-LGBTQ+ messaging.
"I will say to my audience, as a kind of joke, I'll say, 'Everybody's OK, right? Nobody's had a funny time following me... Has anything happened to anyone? You're still married? The kids are good?' The audience laughs because they know what I'm saying; that we have less influence than you think. I was raised in a world that was very heteronormal, but I was still always gonna be who I was. My brothers and I ate the same food, drank the same water but I was born gay and I was always gonna be gay."
"A lot of my audience is not gay," he acknowledges. "I don't go on stage and think, 'How many homosexuals...?' I think Culture Club has always been this real eclectic mix of everyone. Lots of girls, lots of women -- the girls love me and I love them back," he smiles.
Family has always been at the heart of his support network. Although unsure of what to make of his personality at the very beginning, he says it was his mother, Dinah -- who passed away at the age of 84 in March of 2023 -- who first recognized that "it came from a really creative place. It was about self-expression. Once she realized that -- because my mother had been held back in a way by society and by my father -- allowing me to kind of sparkle was so important to my mother."
"As a son, I have no regrets. My mother was a beautiful, beautiful woman. I love talking about her, I celebrate her. I probably tell her every day I love her now more than I did when she was around, which is a shame. I think my mom really facilitated me being freer because she wasn't able to do it."
David Bowie, he explains, was also a huge inspiration in his life and life's work. "He was the light at the end of the grey, suburban tunnel for me," Boy George says. "When I discovered Bowie, I first heard him through my brother's bedroom door, 'The Man Who Sold the World,' and then 'Ziggy [Stardust]' came along. I think my brother moved on to Rod Stewart and The Faces, who I also loved, but Bowie was the one that I adopted because I suddenly realized that there were other people like me out there. Interestingly, Bowie wasn't weirdly gay, I just think he was very open-minded, and even if he was a bit, it wasn't complete. He just played with all those boundaries."
"I think people aren't interesting because of their sexuality or their gender," he adds, "they're interesting because of their imaginations and he used a very wide palette in terms of what he wrote... I suppose his way of writing really influenced me because now I realized you could write a song about anything and you can decide what it's about after you've written it. There isn't really some formula to writing music, it's about so many things."
"I feel as a writer, you've got to keep pushing yourself, and also looking back at what you did instinctively in the beginning," Boy George says. That's why these shows are always fun because you really get to see what certain writing does."
Boy George and Culture Club's upcoming The Letting It Go Show 25-city tour with Howard Jones and Berlin, kicks off on July 13 in West Palm Beach, FL making stops in Atlanta, Nashville, Toronto, Chicago, and Austin before wrapping on the west coast in mid-August. Tickets are on sale now via Live Nation.
Listen to Annalisa's full talk with Boy George above, and stay tuned for more conversations with your favorite artists right here on Audacy.
Words by Joe Cingrana Interview by Annalisa
Joining 93XRT morning show host Marty Lennartz in Chicago this week is legendary singer/songwriter and two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Graham Nash as he prepares to release his brand new album, Now, on May 19.
During their chat surrounding the forthcoming record, Nash's seventh solo effort set for release in May, Graham spoke about the grief that accompanied the loss of his former Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young bandmate David Crosby after his passing at the beginning of this year.
While felt across the music world, the loss was especially hard for those closest to him. "Yeah... obviously terrible for his wife Jan and his son Django. Terribly sad for me, of course, he was my best friend for over 50 years," Graham says. "We were getting together towards the end of his life; we were emailing and voice mailing. It made his death just a little easier for me although much harder for other people."
Speaking of the soon-to-be-released Now, Graham says, "I just wanted to let people know that even in your eighties you can still rock." The songwriting process, he adds, is still the same for him after all these years. "I have to feel something before I write about it of course," Graham explains. "I've always been a writer and I'm still doing the same thing... I see what's going on throughout the world and if I find something that I need to say something about, I will."
Although he has a number of very personal songs on the album written for his wife of four years, artist Amy Grantham, there is certainly plenty of commentary about the world at large, politically and environmentally, to look forward to. "You have to talk about the times in which you live," he explains. "We have a duty as artists to reflect the times in which we live, and that's basically what I'm doing with 'Now.'"
“I called this album ‘Now’ because that’s what this work is. It’s me. Now," Nash said announcing the album on social media earlier this month. "In this moment in my life. It’s no small thing getting to be my age. It’s not easy. I wanted this work to show that even when you reach this point in your life you feel no less creative or passionate about what you do, and how you exist in the world.”
Graham Nash's new album, Now, is scheduled for release on May 19. Plus, fans can catch him currently on tour. Tickets are on sale now.
Listen to the full interview with Graham Nash and Marty Lennartz above, and stay tuned for more conversations with your favorite artists right here on Audacy.
Words by Joe Cingrana Interview by Marty Lennartz
Jenny Lewis recently released a brand new video for her previously released single, “Puppy And A Truck,” and it features a pretty impressive cameo by mega Pop star, Harry Styles.
Lewis recently joined WXRT’s Annalisa to share the idea behind the since-gone-viral song, video and all the details of Harry Styles in a puppy suit.
“The video features a character in a puppy suit who is throughout the video doing things like driving the bus, walking with me along the beach, escorting me off stage every night, like comforting me while I cry and playing the guitar in the arena,” she explained. “And then at the end of the video, it’s revealed that it’s been Harry Styles all along. He takes off the puppy head and you’re like, ‘Oh my God, Harry Styles can really rip on a skateboard.’”
The video contains a montage of Lewis’ time on tour with Styles for his 2021 Love On Tour, which is where she had plenty of time to convince Styles to wear a puppy suit in the video… Not that we believe he needed much convincing.
Lewis clearly had her fun on the tour and even admits going on stage in front of Harry’s “loving, screaming, sparkly, feathery” fans made her feel like an “instant rockstar,” especially on opening night in her hometown of Las Vegas.
“I'm on stage and it was like, I felt like Elvis Presley or my parents [Eddie & Linda Lewis]. [It was] this amazing Vegas moment where it was like I was a rock star.”
Nowadays Jenny is readying to embark on another tour this summer which will see her in various major cities from June-August. See the dates below. She is also set to join Ben Gibbard on tour as part of The Postal Service reunion beginning in September. More info to come soon.
Additionally, Lewis is scheduled to release her brand new album, Joy'all on June 9.
Words by Monica Rivera Interview by Annalisa
This summer, Garbage and Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds will be hitting the road for a joint trek across North America in celebration of Noel & Co's much anticipated fourth album, Council Skies, and Garbage's triumphant return in 2021 with No Gods No Masters.
Speaking with 93XRT in Chicago's Annalisa, Scottish singer Shirley Manson of Garbage says she's looking forward to making a return this summer to the 'Windy City,' a place she's always felt at home as it's where she met the rest of her band when they were just getting started in the early '90s. "My career sort of started there," she adds, remembering her very first concert in the city with her band Angelfish when the Garbage crew was coming to check her out. "Me and [tour mate] Vic [Chesnutt] were hanging out on the sidewalk and we were really drunk. Unfortunately, I pushed Vic -- he was a paraplegic, so he was in a wheelchair -- I pushed him out of his wheelchair, accidentally, and sprawled Vic all over the sidewalk right in front of Butch Vig, Steve Marker, and Duke Erikson. That was how the band met me for the first time, it was awful!"
Noel, looking back on his own Chicago experience, recalls a famous gig his former Britpop band Oasis played at the iconic venue The Metro. "It was filmed, I think for MTV or something," he says, "there's a bootleg of it, and it's one of our great, great gigs off that American tour. It might have been our first one... was that our first gig, The Metro?" Confused, Shirley wonders, "Are you asking me? How the hell am I supposed to know?"
"Yes, I'm asking you, Shirley," Noel laughs. "Because you should have it written down in front of you! Chicago Metro was a great, great Oasis show. Amazing."
Diving into some of the artists' firsts and favorites, Noel remembers British singer/songwriter Leo Sayer's "Won't Let The Show Go On/The Show Must Go On" as the very first record that was ever bought for him. "It's actually a pretty good tune, you know, and he was dressed on the 'Top of the Pops' as a clown. That's what I must have liked about it, but it's actually not a bad tune."
Odd as Noel's choice may be, Shirley remembers her first being a Czechoslovakian television theme song for the show The White Horses. "It's actually a beautiful theme," she says, "that I want played at my funeral. That was the first record that I ever bought and the first song that I can remember falling in love with... It's so beautiful, it's about death."
Bringing things full circle, some of the artists they are each listening to now were brought into the conversation. "Young Fathers for me," Noel says easily. "Yes, yes! Amazing record," Shirley adds, "and my people." Noel continues to heap on praise saying, "their last three records are incredible. If you haven't heard them, they're kind of un-pigeonholeable."
Back in January of 2023, 93XRT in Chicago lost radio legend Lin Brehmer, and Annalisa brought up how Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds song "Easy Now" helped ease the pain of loss during that period. "Honestly, as a songwriter, you kind of live for these moments where people will tell you that a song came along at the right moment," Noel says. "That's what songs are designed for, it's to touch people and to kind of move them in some way. To remind them of something or to tell you something about yourself or situation... I appreciate that."
For Shirley, who wrote on Garbage's 2021 No Gods No Masters, "The men who rule the world have made a f***ing mess," she certainly knows how good, even "triumphant," words can be in the healing process. "Every time we play it live, the audience cheers and it just feels really gratifying. Because it's frustrating to deal with a lot of these old men in power making terrible decisions, as far as I'm concerned, for the country and the world at large. That was my wee moment of revenge and it always brings a little smirk to my face every time we perform it."
Listen to the full interview with Shirley Manson and Noel Gallagher above, and stay tuned for more conversations with your favorite artists here on Audacy.
Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds and Garbage -- featuring special guest Metric -- will hit the road this summer kicking off June 2 on the U.S. West Coast.
Additionally, Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds' much anticipated fourth album, Council Skies, is set for release on June 2, while Garbage, Shirley says, is currently working on their eighth studio album.
Words by Joe Cingrana Interview by Annalisa
Earlier today Bono spoke with Marty Lennartz from Dublin about a host of topics ranging from U2's latest release Songs Of Innocence, how their relationship with Apple came to be, and more.
Earlier today Bono spoke with Marty Lennartz from Dublin about a host of topics ranging from U2's latest release Songs Of Innocence, how their relationship with Apple came to be, and more.